The 

BOMB 

By 
Frank  Harris 


•  '-^•' :•;••.':  / 


NEW  YORK 

MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 

MCMIX 


Copyright  1909  hy 
Mitchell  Kennerley 


The  Robert  Kerr  Press 
Springdale  Connecticut 
New  York  2  E.  29/A  St. 


FOREWORD  f^/^^ 

/HAVE  been  asked  to  write  a  foreword  to  the 
American  edition  of  THE  BOMB  and  the 
publisher  tells  me  that  what  the  American  public 
will  most  want  to  know  is  how  much  of  the  story 
is  true. 

All  through  1885  and  1 886  /  took  a  lively  in- 
terest in  the  labour  disputes  in  Chicago.  The 
reports  that  reached  us  in  London  from  American 
newspapers  were  all  bitterly  one-sided:  they  read 
as  if  some  enraged  capitalist  had  dictated  them: 
but  after  the  bomb  was  thrown  and  the  labour 
leaders  were  brought  to  trial  little  islets  of  facts 
began  to  emerge  from  the  sea  of  lies, 

I  made  up  my  mind  that  if  I  ever  got  the  op- 
portunity I  would  look  into  the  matter  and  see 
whether  the  Socialists  who  had  been  sent  to  death 
deserved  the  punishment  meted  out  to  them  amid 
the  jubilation  of  the  capitalistic  press. 

In  1907  /  paid  a  visit  to  America  and  spent 
some  time  in  Chicago  visiting  the  various  scenes 
and  studying  the  contemporary  newspaper  ac- 
counts of  the  tragedy.  I  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  six  out  of  seven  men  punished  in  Chicago 
were  as  innocent  as  I  was,  and  that  four  of  them 
had  been  murdered — according  to  law, 

I  felt  so  strongly  on  the  subject  that  when  I 
sketched  out  THE  BOMB  /  determined  not  to  alter  a 
'ingle  incident  but  to  take  all  the  facts  just  as  they 

3584S5 


6  THE  BOMB 

occurred.  The  hook  then,  in  the  most  important 
particulars^  is  a  history,  and  is  true,  as  history 
should  be  true,  to  life,  when  there  are  no  facts  to  go 
upon. 

The  success  of  the  book  in  England  has  been  due 
partly  perhaps  to  the  book  itself;  but  also  in  part 
to  the  fact  that  it  enabled  Englishmen  to  gloat  over 
a  fancied  superiority  to  Americans  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice.  The  prejudice  shown  in  Chica- 
go,  the  gross  unfairness  of  the  trial,  the  savagery 
of  the  sentences  allowed  Englishmen  to  believe  that 
such  judicial  murders  were  only  possible  in  Ameri- 
ca. I  am  not  of  that  opinion.  At  the  risk  of 
disturbing  the  comfortable  self-esteem  of  my  com- 
patriots I  must  say  that  I  believe  the  administrO' 
tion  of  justice  in  the  United  States  is  at  least  as 
fair  and  certainly  more  humane  than  it  is  in  Eng- 
land. The  Socialists  in  Trafalgar  Square  when 
John  Burns  and  Cunninghame  Graham  were 
maltreated,  were  even  worse  handled  in  proportion 
to  their  resistance  than   their  fellows   in  Chicago. 

I  am  afraid  the  moral  of  the  story  is  a  little  too 
obvious:  it  may,  however,  serve  to  remind  the 
American  people  how  valuable  are  some  of  the 
foreign  elements  which  go  to  make  up  their  com- 
plex civfh'zafioh.  '  It  may  also  incidentally  remind 
the  reader  of  the  value  of  sjm^thy  with  ideas_ 
which  he  perhaps  dislikes. 

FRANK  HARRIS 
London,  January  1909 


"Some  showed  me  Life,  as  Hwere  a  royal  game. 
Shining  in  every  colour  of  the  sun 

With  'prizes  to  he  played  for,  one  by  one. 
Love,  riches,  fame, 

"Some  showed  me  Life,  as  Hwere  a  terrible  fight, 
A  ceaseless  striving  Against  unnumbered  foes, 

A  battle  ever  harder  to  the  close 
Ending  in  night" 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/bombtheOOharrrich 


THE  BOMB 


THE  BOMB 


CHAPTER  I 

**Hold  the  high  way  and  let  thy  spirit  thee  lead 
And  Truth  shal  thee    deliver,  it  is  no  drede. " 

TV/TY  name  is  Rudolph  Schnaubelt.  I 
threw  the  bomb  which  killed  eight 
policemen  and  wounded  sixty  in  Chicago  in 
1886.  Now  I  lie  here  in  Reichhol2j^  Bavaria,> 
dying  of  consumption  under  a  false  name,  in 
peace  at  last. 

But  it  is  not  about  myself  I  want  to  write: 
I  am  finished.  I  got  chilled  to  the  heart  last 
winter,  and  grew  steadily  worse  in  those  hate- 
ful, broad,  white  Muenchener  streets  which 
are  baked  by  the  sun  and  swept  by  the  icy 
air  from  the  Alps.  Nature  or  man  will  soon 
deal  with  my  refuse  as  they  please. 

But  there  is  one  thing  I  must  do  before  I 
go  out,  one  thing  I  have  promised  to  do.  I 
must  tell  the  story  of  the  man  who  spread 
terror  through  America,  the  greatest  man 
that  ever  lived,  I  think;  a  born  rebel,  murder- 


10        •.  :  :   :THE  BOMB 

e^-.ind  inarfyf  J  If  I  can  give  a  fair  portrait 
of  Louis  tirigg,  the  Chicago  Anarchist,  as 
I  knew  him,  show  the  body  and  soul  and 
mighty  purpose  of  him,  I  shall  have  done 
more  for  men  than  when  I  threw  the  bomb.  .  . . 

How  am  I  to  tell  the  story  ?  Is  it  possible 
to  paint  a  great  man  of  action  in  words;  show 
his  cool  calculation  of  forces,  his  unerring 
judgment,  and  the  tiger  spring?  The  best 
thing  I  can  do  is  to  begin  at  the  beginning, 
and  tell  the  tale  quite  simply  and  sincerely. 
"Truth,"  Lingg  said  to  me  once,  "is  the 
skeleton,  so  to  speak,  of  all  great  works  of 
art."  Besides,  memory  is  in  itself  an  artist. 
It  all  happened  long  ago,  and  in  time  one  for- 
gets the  trivial  and  remembers  the  important. 

It  should  be  easy  enough  for  me  to  paint 
this  one  man's  portrait.  I  don't  mean  that 
I  am  much  of  a  writer;  but  I  have  read  some 
of  the  great  writers,  and  know  how  they  pic- 
ture a  man,  and  any  weakness  of  mine  is 
more  than  made  up  for  by  the  best  model  a 
writer  ever  had.  God!  if  he  could  come  in 
here  now  and  look  at  me  with  those  eyes  of 
,  his,  and  hold  out  his  hands,  I'd  rise  from  this 
bed  and  be  well  again;  shake  off  the  cough 
and  sweat  and  deadly  weakness,  shake  off 
anything.  He  had  vitality  enough  in  him  to 
bring  the  dead  to  life,  passion  enough  for  a 
hundred  men.   .   .   . 


THE  BOMB  11 

I  learned  so  much  from  him,  so  much; 
even  more,  strange  to  say,  since  I  lost  him 
than  when  I  was  with  him.  In  these  lonely 
latter  months  I  have  read  a  good  deal,  thought 
a  good  deal;  and  all  my  reading  has  been 
illumined  by  sayings  of  his  which  suddenly 
come  back  to  my  mind,  and  make  the  dark 
ways  plain.  I  have  often  wondered  why  I 
did  not  appreciate  this  phrase  or  that  when  he 
used  it.  But  memory  treasured  it  up,  and 
when  the  time  was  ripe,  or  rather,  when  I 
was  ripe  for  it,  I  recalled  it,  and  realized  its 
significance;  he  is  the  spring  of  all  my  growth. 

The  worst  of  it  is  that  I  shall  have  to  talk 
about  myself  at  first,  and  my  early  life,  and 
that  will  not  be  interesting;  but  I  can't  help 
it,  for  after  all  I  am  the  mirror  in  which  the 
reader  must  see  Lingg,  and  I  want  him  to 
feel  pretty  certain  that  the  mirror  is  clean  at 
least,  and  does  not  distort  truth,  or  disfigure  it. 

I  was  born  near  Munich,  in  a  little  village 
called  Lindau.  My  father  was  an  Ober- 
foerster,  a  chief  in  the  forestry  department. 
My  mother  died  early.  I  was  brought  up 
healthily  enough  in  the  hard  way  of  the  Ger- 
man highlands.  At  six  I  went  to  the  village 
school.  Because  my  clothes  were  better  than 
most  of  the  other  boys'  clothes,  because  every 
now  and  then  I  had  a  few  Pfennige  to  spend, 
I  thought  myself  better  than  my  schoolmates. 


12  THE  BOMB 

The  master,  too,  never  beat  me  or  scolded 
me.  I  must  have  been  a  dreadful  little  snob. 
I  remembe'r  liking  my  first  name,  Ruldoph. 
There  were  princes,  forsooth,  called  Rudolph; 
but  Schnaubelt  I  hated,  it  seemed  vulgar  and 
common. 

When  I  was  about  twelve  or  thirteen  I  had 
learned  all  that  the  village  school  had  to  teach. 
My  father  wished  me  to  go  to  Munich  to 
study  in  the  Gymnasium,  though  he  grudged 
the  money  it  would  cost  to  keep  me  there. 
When  he  was  not  drinking  or  working  he 
used  to  preach  the  money-value  of  education 
to  me,  and  I  was  willing  enough  to  believe 
him.  He  never  showed  me  touch  affection, 
and  I  was  not  sorry  to  go  out  into  the  larger 
worid,  and  try  my  wings  in  a  long  flight. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  I  first  of  all 
became  aware  of  nature's  beauty.  Away 
to  the  south  our  mountain  valley  broke  down 
towards  the  flat  country,  and  one  could  look 
towards  Munich  far  over  the  plain  all  painted 
in  different  colours  by  the  growing  crops. 
Suddenly  one  evening  the  scales  fell  from  my 
eyes;  I  saw  the  piney  mountain  and  the  misty- 
blue  plain  and  the  golden  haze  of  the  setting 
sun,    and    stared    in    wondering   admiration. 

How  was  it  I  had  never  before  seen  their 
beauty  ? 

Well,  I  went  to  the  Gymnasium.     I  sup- 


THE  BOMB  13 

pose  I  was  dutiful  and  teachable:  we  Ger- 
mans have  those  sheep-virtues  in  our  blood. 
But  in  my  reading  of  Latin  and  Greek  I 
came  across  thoughts  and  thinkers,  and  at 
length  Heine,  the  poet,  woke  me  to  question 
all  the  fairy  tales  of  childhood.  Heine  was 
my  first  teacher,  and  I  learned  from  him 
more  than  I  learned  in  the  class-rooms;  it 
was  he  who  opened  for  me  the  door  of  the 
modern  world.  I  finished  with  the  Gymna- 
sium when  I  was  about  eighteen,  and  left  it, 
as  Bismarck  said  he  left  it,  a  Freethinker 
and  Republican. 

In  the  hoHdays  I  used  to  go  home  to  Lindau; 
but  my  father  made  my  life  harder  and  harder 
to  me.  He  was  away  all  day  at  work.  He  did 
work,  that  is  one  thing  I  must  say  for  him; 
but  he  left  at  home  the  girl  who  took  charge 
of  the  house,  and  she  used  to  give  herself  airs. 
She  was  justified  in  doing  so,  I  suppose,  poor 
girl;  but  I  did  not  like  it  at  the  time,  and  re- 
sented her  manner,  snob  that  I  was.  When 
I  had  any  words  with  Suesel  I  was  sure  to 
have  a  row  with  my  father  afterwards,  and 
he  didn't  pick  his  words,  especially  when  he 
had  drink  in  him.  I  seemed  to  anger  him; 
intellectually  we  were  at  opposite  poles.  pEven 
when  cheating  or  worse  he  was  a  devout  Lu- 
theran, and  his  servility  to  his  superiors  was 
only  equalled  by  the  harshness  with  which 


14  THE  BOMB 

he  treated  his  underlings.  His  credulity  and 
servility  were  as  offensive  to  my  new  dfignity 
of  manhood  as  his  cruelty  to  his  subordinates 
or  his  bestial  drunkenness. 

For  some  unhappy  months  I  was  at  a  loose 
end.  I  was  very  proud,  thought  no  end  of 
myself  and  my  petty  sc^j^larly  achievements; 
but  I  didn't  know  what  course  to  steer  in  life, 
what  profession  to  adopt.  Besides,  the  year 
of  military  service  stood  between  me  and  my 
future  occupation,  and  the  mere  thought  of 
the  slavery  was  inexpressibly  hateful  to  me. 
I  hated  the  uniform,  the  livery  of  murder; 
hated  the  discipline  which  turned  a  man  into 
a  macliine;  hated  the  orders  which  I  must 
obey,  even  though  they  were  absurd;  hated 
the  mad  unreason  of  the  vile,  soul-stifling 
system.  Why  should  I,  a  German,  fight 
Frenchmen  or  Russians  or  Englishmen?  I 
was  wilUng  enough  to  defend  myself  or  my 
countrj'  if  we  were  attacked;  confident  enough, 
too,  in  courage,  to  believe  that  a  militia  like 
the  Swiss  would  suflSce  for  that  purpose.  But 
I  loved  the  French,  as  my  teacher  Heine  loved 
them;  a  great  Cultur-volk,  I  said  to  myself — 
a  nation  in  the  first  rank  of  civilization;  I 
loved  the  Russians,  too,  an  intelligent,  sym- 
pathetic, kindly  people;  and  I  admired  the 
adventurous  English.  Race-differences  were 
as  deUghtful  in  my  eyes  as  the  genera-differ- 


THE  BOMB  15 

ences  of  flowers.  Wars  and  titles  belonged 
to  the  dark  past  and  childhood  of  humanity; 
were  we  never  to  be  breeched  as  men  simply, 
and  brothers  ?  We  mortals,  I  thought,  should 
be  trained  to  fight  disease  and  death,  and  not 
one  another;  we  should  be  sworn  to  conquer 
nature  and  master  her  laws,  that  was  the  new 
warfare  in  which  wisdom  and  courage  would 
have  their  full  reward  in  the  humanization  of 
man. 

Thoughts  like  these  lighted  my  darkness; 
but  the  shadows  were  heavy.  I  was  at  odds 
with  my  surroundings;  I  detested  the  brain^  0 
less  conventions  of  life,  the  so-called  aristo- 
cratic orgajiiza'tion  of  it;  besides,  my  father 
did  not  care  to  support  me  any  longer;  I  was 
a  burden  to  him;  and  in  this  state  of  intoler- 
able dependence  and  unrest  my  thoughts 
turned  to  America.  More  and  more  the  pur- 
pose fixed  itself  in  me  to  get  money  and  emi- 
grate; the  new  land  seemed  to  call  me.  I 
wanted  to  be  a  writer  or  teacher;  I  wanted  to 
see  the  world,  to  win  new  experiences;  I 
wanted  freedom,  love,  honour,  everything  that 
young  men  want,  vaguely;  my  blood  was  in  a 
ferment.  .  .  . 

It  was  a  sordid  quarrel  with  my  father,  in 
which  he  told  me  that  at  my  age  he  was  al- 
ready earning  his  living,  which  made  up  my 
mind  for  me,  that  and  a  sentence  of  Hermann 


16  THE  BOMB 

Grimm,  which  happened  at  the  time  to  be 
singing  itself  in  my  ears: — 

"An  all  over-stretching  impulse  towards 
equality,  before  God  and  the  law,  alone  con- 
trols to  day  the  history  of  our  race." 

That  was  what  I  wanted,  or  thought  I 
wanted — equality — 

**Ein  ueber-Alles  sich  ausstreckendes  Ver- 
langen  nach  Gleichheit  vor  Gott  und  vor 
dem  Gesetze.  ..." 

Not  much  in  the  phrase,  the  reader  will  say, 
I*m  afraid;  but  I  give  it  here  because  at  the 
moment  it  had  an  extraordinary  effect  upon 
me.  It  was  the  first  time  to  my  knowledge 
that  a  properly  equipped  thinker  had  recog- 
nized the  desire  for  equality  as  a  motive  force 
at  all,  let  alone  as  the  chief  driving  power  in 
modern  politics. 

A  few  days  after  our  quarrel  I  told  my 
father  I  intended  to  go  to  America,  and  asked 
him  if  he  could  let  me  have  five  hundred 
marks  ($125)  to  take  me  to  New  York.  I 
fixed  the  sum  at  five  hundred  because  he  had 
promised  to  let  me  have  that  amount  during 
my  first  year  in  the  University.  I  told  him 
that  I  wanted  it  as  a  loan  and  not  as  a  gift, 
and  at  length  I  got  it,  for  Suesel  backed  up 
my  request — a  kindness  I  did  not  at  all  ex- 
pect, which  moved  me  to  shamefaced  grati- 
tude.    But    Suesel    wanted    no    thanks;    she 


THE  BOMB  17 

merely  wished  to  get  rid  of  me,  she  said;  for 
if  I  stayed  I  should  be  a  drag  on  my  father. 

I  travelled  fourth-class  to  Hamburg,  and 
in  three  days  was  on  the  high  seas.  I  was 
the  only  man  of  any  education  in  the  steerage, 
and  I  kept  to  myself,  and  spent  most  of  my 
time  studying  English.  Still,  I  made  one  or 
two  acquaintances.  There  was  a  young  fel- 
low called  Ludwig  Henschel  going  out  as  a 
waiter^  who  had  worked  for  some  years  in 
England,  and  regarded  America  as  Tom 
Tiddler's  ground.  He  loved  to  show  off  to  me 
and  advise  me;  but  all  the  while  was  a  little 
proud  of  my  acquaintance  and  my  scholar- 
ship, and  I  tolerated  him  chiefly  because  his 
attitude  flattered  my  paltry  vanity. 

There  was  a  North  German,  too,  called 
Raben,  who  was  by  way  of  being  a  journalist, 
though  he  had  more  conceit  than  reading,  and 
his  learning  was  to  seek.  He  was  small  and 
thin,  with  washed-out,  sandy  hair,  grey  eyes, 
and  white  eyelashes.  He  had  a  nervous 
staccato  way  of  talking;  but  he  met  one's 
eye  boldly,  and  though  instinct  warned  me 
to  avoid  him,  I  knew  so  little  of  life  that  I 
took  his  stare  for  proof  of  frank  honesty,  and 
felt  with  some  remorse  that  my  aversion 
wronged  him.  Had  I  known  then  of  him  what 
I  learned  later,  I'd  have — but  there!  Judas 
didn't  go  about  branded.     I  think  Raben  dis- 


18  THE  BOMB 

liked  me.  At  first  he  tried  to  make  up  to  me; 
but  in  an  argument  one  day  he  blundered  in 
a  Latin  tag,  and  saw  that  I  had  detected  the 
mistake.  He  drew  away  from  me  then,  and 
tried  to  carry  Henschel  with  him;  but  Ludwig 
knew  more  of  life  than  books,  and  confided 
to  me  that  he  would  never  trust  a  man  or  a 
woman  with  light  eyelashes.  What  children 
we  men  are! 

Another  acquaintance  I  made  on  the  steam- 
er was  a  Jew  boy  from  Lemburg,  Isaac 
Glueckstein,  who  had  no  money  and  knew 
but  little  English,  yet  whose  self-confidence 
was  in  itself  no  mean  stock-in-trade.  "In 
five  years  I  shall  be  rich,"  was  always  on  the 
tip  of  his  tongue — five  years!  He  never 
looked  at  a  book,  but  he  was  always  tiding 
to  talk  English  with  some  one  or  other,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  voyage  he  could  under- 
stand more  English  than  I  could,  though  he 
could  not  read  it  at  all,  whilst  I  read  it  with 
ease.  .  .  .  When  we  parted  on  the  wharf  he 
drifted  out  of  my  life;  but  I  know  that  he  is 
now  the  famous  Newport  banker,  and  fa- 
bulously rich.  He  had  only  one  ambition, 
and  went  in  blinkers  to  attain  it;  desire  in 
his  case  being  a  forecast  of  capacity. 

We  reached  Sandy  Hook  late  one  evening, 
and  ran  up  to  New  York  next  day.  Every- 
thing was  hurry  and  excitement;  the  cheer- 


jt 


THE  BOMB  19 

ful  tone  and  bustle  made  me  feel  very  lone- 
some.    When  we  landed  I  went  to  look  for 
lodgings  with   Henschel,   who   was    only  too 
glad  to  have  me  with  him,   and,   thanks  to 
his  command  of  English  and  the  freemasonry 
of  his  craft,  we  soon  found  a  room  and  board 
in  a  by-street  on  the  east   side.     Next  day 
Henschel  and  I  started  to  look  for  work.     I 
little  thought  that  I  was  going  gaily  to  un- 
dreamed-of misery.     If  I  try  to  recall  now 
some  of  the  sufferings  of  that  time,  it  is  be- 
cause my  terrible  experiences  throw  light  on 
the  tragic  after-story.     Never  did  any  one  go 
out   to   seek   work  more   cheerfully   or   with 
better  resolutions.     I  had  made  up  my  mind 
to  work  as  hard  as  I  could;  whatever  I  was 
given  to  do,  I  said  to  myself,  I  would  do  it  with 
my  might,  do  it  so  that  no  one  coming  after  me 
should  do  it  as  well.     I  had  tested  this  res- 
olution of  mine  again  and  again  in  my  school 
life,  and  had  always  found  it  succeed.     I  had 
won  always,  even  in  the  Gymnasium,  even  in 
Prima.     Why   should   not   the   same   resolve 
bring  me  to  the  front  in  the  wider  competition 
of   life  ?    Poor   fool   that  I  was. 

On  that  first  morning  I  was  up  at  five 
o'clock,  and  kept  repeating  to  myself,  over 
and  over  again  as  I  dressed,  the  English 
phrases  I  should  have  to  use  in  the  day,  till 
they  all  came  trippingly  to  my  tongue,  and 


«0  THE  BOMB 

when  at  six  o'clock  I  went  out  into  the  air  I 
was  boyishly  excited  and  eager  for  the  struggle. 
The  May  morning  had  all  the  beauty  and 
freshness  of  youth;  the  air  was  warm,  yet  light 
and  quick.  I  fell  in  love  w4th  the  broad, 
sunny  streets.  The  people,  too,  walked  rap- 
idly, the  street  cars  spun  past;  everything 
was  brisk  and  cheerful;  I  felt  curiously  ex- 
hilarated and  light-hearted. 

First  of  all  I  went  to  a  well-known  American 
newspaper  oflSce  and  asked  to  see  the  editor. 
After  waiting  some  time  I  was  told  curtly 
that  the  editor  was  not  in. 

"When  will  he  be  in?"  I  questioned. 

"To-night,  I  guess,"  replied  the  janitor, 
"about  eleven,"  with  a  stare  that  sized  me 
up  from  the  crown  of  my  head  to  the  soles  of 
my  feet.  "If  you  hev  a  letter  for  him,  you 
kin  leave  it." 

"I  have  no  letter,"  I  confessed,  shame- 
facedly. 

"Oh,  shucks!"  he  exclaimed,  in  utter  con- 
tempt. What  did  "shucks"  mean?  I  asked 
myself  in  vain.  In  spite  of  repeated  efforts 
I  could  get  no  further  information  from  this 
Cerberus.  At  last,  tired  of  my  importunity, 
he  slammed  the  window  in  my  face,  with — 

"Ah,  go  scratch  your  head,  Dutchy." 

The  fool  angered  me;  besides,  why  should 
he   take   pleasure  in  rudeness?     It  flattered 


THE  BOMB  21 

his  vanity,  I  suppose,  to  be  able  to  treat 
another  man  with  contempt. 

I  was  a  Httle  cast  down  by  this  first  rebuff, 
and  when  I  went  again  into  the  streets  I 
found  the  sun  hotter  than  I  had  ever  known 
it;  but  I  trudged  off  to  a  German  paper  I 
had  heard  of,  and  asked  again  to  see  the 
editor.  The  man  at  the  door  was  plainly 
a  German,  so  I  spoke  German  to  him.  He 
answered  with  a  South  German  accent  strong 
enough  to  skate  on — 

"Can't  you  speak  United  States?" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  and  repeated  my  question 
carefully  in  American. 

"No,  he  ain't  in,"  was  the  reply;  "and  I 
guess  ven  he  comes  in,  he  von't  vant  to  see 
you."     The  tone  was  worse  than  the  words. 

I  received  several  similar  rebuffs  that  first 
morning,  and  before  noon  my  stock  of  courage 
or  impudence  was  nearly  exhausted.  No- 
where the  slightest  sympathy,  the  smallest 
desire  to  help:  on  all  sides  contempt  for  my 
pretensions,  delight  in  my  discomfiture. 

I  went  back  to  the  boarding-house  more 
weary  than  if  I  had  done  three  days'  work. 
The  midday  meal,  however,  cheered  me  up 
a  little;  my  resolution  came  back  to  me  and, 
in  spite  of  the  temptation  to  stay  and  talk 
with  the  other  lodgers,  I  retired  to  my  room 
and  began  to  study.     Henschel  had  rot  re- 


22  THE  BOMB 

turned  for  dinner,  so  I  hoped  that  he  had 
found  work.  However  that  might  be,  it  was 
my  business  to  learn  English  as  quickly  as 
possible,  so  I  set  myself  to  the  task,  and  mem- 
orized through  the  swooning  heat  doggedly 
till  six  o'clock,  when  I  went  downstairs  for 
tea.  Our  German  schools  may  not  be  very 
good;  but  at  least  they  teach  one  how  to  learn 
languages. 

After  supper,  as  it  was  called,  I  returned 
to  my  room,  which  was  still  like  an  oven,  and 
studied  in  my  shirt-sleeves  at  the  open  win- 
dow till  nearly  midnight,  when  Henschel 
burst  in  with  the  news  that  he  had  got  work 
in  a  great  restaurant,  and  had  wonderful 
prospects.  I  did  not  grudge  him  his  good 
luck,  but  the  contrast  seemed  to  make  my 
forlorn  state  more  miserable.  I  told  him 
how  I  had  been  received;  but  he  had  no 
counsel  to  give,  no  hope;  he  was  lost  in  his 
own  good  fortune.  He  had  taken  ten  dollars 
in  tips.  It  all  went  into  the  "tronk"  he  told 
me,  or  common  stock,  and  the  waiters  and 
head-waiters  shared  it  at  the  end  of  the  week, 
according  to  a  fixed  ratio.  He  would  cer- 
tainly earn,  he  calculated,  between  forty  and 
fifty  dollars  a  week.  The  thought  that  I, 
who  had  spent  seven  years  in  study,  could  not 
get  anything  at  all  to  do  was  not  pleasant. 

When  he  left  me  I  went  to  bed;  but  I  tossed 


THE  BOMB  23 

about  a  long  time,  unable  to  sleep.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  it  would  have  been  better  for 
me  if  I  had  been  taught  any  trade  or  handi- 
craft, instead  of  being  given  an  education 
which  no  one  appeared  to  want.  I  found 
out  afterwards  that  had  I  been  trained  as  a 
bricklayer,  or  carpenter,  or  plumber,  or  house 
painter,  I  should  probably  have  got  work,  as 
Henschel  got  it,  as  soon  as  I  reached  New 
York.  The  educated  man  without  money 
or  a  profession  is  not  much  thought  of  in 
America. 

Next  day  I  got  up  and  went  to  look  for  work 
as  before,  with  just  as  little  success,  and  so 
the  hunt  continued  for  six  or  seven  days,  till 
my  first  week  had  come  to  an  end,  and  I  had 
to  pay  another  week's  board — five  dollars — 
out  of  my  scanty  stock  of  forty-five.  Eight 
more  weeks,  I  said  to  myself,  and  then — ? 
Fear  came  to  me,  humiliating  fear,  and  gnaw- 
ed at  my  self-esteem. 

The  second  week  passed  like  the  first.  At 
the  end  of  it,  however,  Henschel  had  a  Sun- 
day morning  off,  and  took  me  vdth  him  on 
the  steamer  to  Jersey  City;  we  had  a  great 
talk.  I  told  him  what  I  had  done,  and  how 
hard  I  had  tried  to  get  work— all  in  vain.  He 
assured  me  he  would  keep  his  eyes  and  ears 
open  and  as  soon  as  he  came  across  a  writer 
or  an  editor  he  would  speak  for  me  to  him 


24  THE  BOMB 

and  let  me  know.  With  this  small  crumb  of 
comfort  I  was  fain  to  be  content.  But  the 
outing  and  rest  had  given  me  fresh  courage, 
and  when  we  came  back  I  told  Henschel  that 
as  I  had  exhausted  all  the  newspaper  oflBces, 
I  would  try  next  day  to  get  work  on  the  eleva- 
ted railways,  or  on  the  street-car  lines,  or  in 
some  German  house  where  English  was  spoken. 
Another  week  or  two  fleeted  by.  I  had 
been  in  hundreds  of  oflSces  and  met  nothing 
but  refusals,  and  generally  rude  refusals.  I 
had  called  at  every  tram  centre,  visited  every 
railroad  depot — in  vain.  And  now  there  were 
only  thirty  dollars  in  my  purse.  Fear  of  the 
future  began  to  turn  into  sour  rage  in  me,  and 
infect  my  blood.  Strangely  enough,  a  little 
talk  I  had  with  Glueckstein  on  board  the  ship 
often  came  back  to  me.  I  asked  him  one 
morning  how  he  intended  to  begin  to  get  rich. 
"Get  into  a  big  oflBce,"  he  said. 

"But  how — where?"  I  asked. 

"Go  about  and  ask,"  he  replied.  "There 
is  some  office  in  New  York  wants  me  as  badly 
as  I  want  it,  and  I'm  going  to  find  it." 

This  speech  stuck  in  my  memory  and 
strengthened  my  determination  to  persevere 
at  all  costs. 

One  fact  I  noted  which  is  a  little  difficult 
to  explain.  I  learned  more  English  in  the 
three  or  four  weeks  I  spent  looking  for  work 


THE  BOMB  25 

jin  New  York  than  in  all  the  months,  or  in- 
Jdeed  years,  I  had  studied  it.  Memory  seemed 
to  receive  impressions  more  deeply  as  the 
tension  of  anxiety  increased.  I  spoke  quite 
fluently  at  the  end  of  the  first  month,  though 
no  doubt  with  a  German  accent.  I  had 
already  read  a  good  many  novels,  too,  of 
Thackeray  and  others,  and  half  a  dozen  of 
Shakespeare's  plays. 

Week  after  week  slipped  past;  my  little 
stock  of  dollar  bills  dwindled  away;  at  length 
I  was  at  the  end  of  my  poor  capital,  and  as 
far  from  work  as  ever.  I  shall  never  be  able 
to  give  an  idea  of  what  I  suffered  in  disappoint- 
ment and  sheer  misery.  Fortunately  for  my 
reason  the  humiliations  filled  me  with  rage, 
and  this  rage  and  fear  fermented  in  me  into 
bitterness  which  bred  all-hating  thoughts. 
When  I  saw  rich  men  entering  a  restaurant, 
or  driving  in  Central  Park,  I  grew  murderous. 
They  wasted  in  a  minute  as  much  as  I  asked 
for  a  week's  work.  The  most  galling  re- 
flection was  that  no  one  wanted  me  or  my 
labour.  "Even  the  horses  are  all  employed," 
I  said  to  myself,  "and  thousands  of  men^.  who 
are  much  better  working  animals  than  any 
horse  are  left  utterly  unused.  What  waste!" 
One  conclusion  settled  itself  in  me;  there 
was  something  rotten  in  a  society  which  left 
good  brains  and  willing  hands  without  work. 


26  THE  BOMB 

I  made  up  my  mind  to  pawn  a  silver  watch 
my  father  had  given  me  when  we  parted,  and 
with  what  I  got  for  the  watch  I  paid  my  week's 
board.  The  week  passed,  and  still  I  had  no 
work,  and  now  I  had  nothing  to  pawn.  I 
knew  from  having  talked  to  the  boarding- 
house  keeper  that  credit  was  not  to  be  looked 
for.  "Pay  or  get  out"  was  the  motto  always 
on  his  lips.     Pay!    Would  they  take  blood? 

I  was  getting  desperate.  Hate  and  rage 
seethed  in  me.  I  was  ready  for  anything. 
This  is  the  way,  I  said  to  myself,  society 
makes  criminals.  But  I  did  not  even  know 
how  to  commit  a  crime,  nor  where  to  turn, 
and  when  Henschel  came  home  I  asked  him 
if  I  could  get  a  job  as  waiter. 

"But  you  are  not  a  waiter." 

"Can't  anybody  be  a  waiter?"  I  asked  in 
amaze. 

"No,  indeed,"  he  replied  quite  indignantly. 
"If  you  had  a  table  of  six  people,  and  each  of 
them  ordered  a  different  soup,  and  three  of 
them  ordered  one  sort  of  fish,  and  the  three 
others,  three  different  sorts  of  fish,  and  so  on, 
you  would  not  remember  what  had  been  order- 
ed, and  could  not  transmit  the  order  to  the 
kitchen.  Believe  me,  it  takes  a  good  deal  of 
practice  and  memory  to  wait  well.  One 
must  have  brains  to  be  a  waiter.  Do  you 
think  you  could  carry  six  soup  plates  full  of 


THE  BOMB  27 

soup,  on  a  tray,  into  a  room,  high  above  your 
head,  with  other  waiters  running  against  you, 
without  spilHng  a  drop?" 

The  argument  was  unanswerable:  "One 
must  have  brains  to  be  a  waiter!" 

*'But  couldn't  I  be  an  assistant?"  I  per- 
sisted. 

"Then  you  would  only  get  seven  or  eight 
dollars  a  week,"  he  replied;  "and  even  an 
assistant,  as  a  rule,  knows  the  waiter's  work, 
though  he  perhaps  doesn't  know  American." 

The  cloud  of  depression  deepened;  every 
avenue  seemed  closed  to  me.  Yet  I  must  do 
something,  I  had  no  money,  not  a  dollar. 
What  could  I  do  ?  I  must  borrow  from  Hen- 
schel.  My  cheeks  burned.  I  had  always 
looked  on  him,  good  fellow  though  he  was,  as 
an  inferior,  and  now — ^yet  it  had  to  be  done. 
There  was  no  other  way.  I  resented  having 
to  do  it.  In  spite  of  myself,  I  bore  a  certain 
ill-will  to  Henschel  and  his  superior  position, 
as  if  he  had  been  responsible  for  my  humilia- 
tion. What  brutes  we  men  are.  I  only  asked 
him  for  five  dollars,  just  enough  to  pay  my 
week's  board.  He  lent  them  willingly  enough; 
but  he  did  not  like  being  asked,  I  thought. 
It  may  have  been  my  wounded  sensibility; 
but  I  grew  hot  with  shame  at  having  to  take 
his  money.  I  determined  that  next  day  I 
would  get  work,  work  of  any  kind,   and  I 


28  THE  BOMB 

would  go  into  the  streets  to  get  it.  I  scarcely 
slept  an  hour  that  long  hot  night;  rage  shook 
me  again  and  again,  and  I  got  up  and  paced 
my  den  like  a  beast. 

In  the  morning  I  put  on  my  worst  clothes, 
and  went  down  to  the  docks  and  asked  for 
work.  Strange  to  say,  my  accent  passed  un- 
noticed, and  stranger  still,  I  found  here  some 
of  the  sympathy  and  kindness  which  I  had 
looked  for  in  vain  before.  The  rough  labour- 
ers at  the  docks — Irishmen,  or  Norwegians, 
or  coloured  men — were  willing  to  give  me 
any  assistance  they  could.  They  showed  me 
where  to  go  and  ask  for  work;  told  me  what 
the  boss  was  like,  the  best  time  and  way  to 
approach  him.  On  every  hand  now  I  found 
human  sympathy;  but  for  days  and  days  no 
work.  How  far  did  I  fall?  That  week  I 
learned  enough  to  know  that  I  could  pawn 
my  Sunday  suit.  I  got  fifteen  dollars  on  it; 
paid  my  bill,  paid  Henschel,  too,  and  went 
straight  to  a  workman's  lodging-house,  where 
I  could  board  for  three  dollars  a  week.  Hen- 
schel begged  me  to  stay  on  with  him,  said  he 
would  help  me;  but  the  stomach  of  my  pride 
would  not  stand  his  charity,  so  I  gave  him 
my  address,  in  case  he  heard  of  anything  to 
suit  me,  and  went  down — to  the  lowest  level 
of  decent  working  life. 

The  lodging-house  at  first  seemed  to  me  a 


THE  BOMB  29 

foul  place.  It  was  a  low  tenement  house  let 
off  in  single  rooms  to  foreign  workmen.  You 
could  get  your  meals  in  it  or  cook  your  own 
food  in  your  room,  whichever  you  liked. 
The  dining-room  would  hold  about  thirty 
people  comfortably;  but  after  supper,  which 
lasted  from  seven  till  nine,  it  was  filled  with 
perhaps  sixty  men,  smoking  and  talking  at 
intervals,  in  a  dozen  different  tongues  till  ten 
or  eleven  o'clock.  For  the  most  part  they 
were  day-labourers,  untidy,  dirty,  shiftless; 
but  they  showed  me  how  to  get  casual  light 
labour  at  docks  and  offices  and  restaurants — 
the  myriad  chance- jobs  of  a  great  city.  Here 
I  lived  for  months,  spending  perhaps  three 
days  in  getting  a  job  which  perhaps  only  em- 
ployed me  for  a  few  hours,  then  again  finding 
work  which  lasted  three  or  four  days. 

At  first  I  suffered  intensely  from  shame 
and  a  sense  of  undeserved  degradation. 
How  had  I  fallen  so  low  ?  I  must  be  to  blame 
in  some  way.  Wounded  vanity  frayed  my 
nerves  threadbare  and  intensified  the  discom- 
fort of  my  surroundings.  Then  came  a 
period  in  which  I  accepted  my  fate,  and  took 
everything  as  it  came,  sullenly.  Usually  I 
earned  enough  each  week  to  keep  me  a  week 
and  a  half  or  two  weeks;  but  in  mid- winter 
I  had  three  or  four  spells  of  bad  luck,  when  I 
fell  even  below  the  lodging-house  to  the  bed 


80  THE  BOMB 

for    a    night,  hunger    and    hopeless    misery. 

It  is  much  harder  to  get  employment  in  the 
depth  of  winter  than  in  any  other  season.  It 
would  really  seem  as  if  nature  came  to  aid 
man  in  crushing  and  demoralizing  the  poor. 
You  will  say  that  this  only  applies  to  special 
trades;  but  take  the  statistics  of  the  unem- 
ployed, and  you  will  find  them  highest  in  mid- 
winter. I  had  never  experienced  anything 
like  the  cold  in  New  York,  the  awful  blizzards; 
the  clear  nights  when  the  thermometer  fell 
to  ten  and  fifteen  degrees  below  zero,  and  the 
cold  seemed  to  pierce  one  with  a  hundred  icy 
blades — life  threatened  at  every  point  by 
nature  and  man  more  brutal-callous  than  ever. 

I  had  youth  on  my  side,  and  pride,  and  no 
vices  which  cost  money,  or  I  should  have  gone 
under  in  that  bitter  purgatory.  More  than 
once  I  walked  the  streets  all  night  long,  stupe- 
fied, dazed  with  cold  and  hunger;  more  than 
once  the  charity  of  some  woman  or  workman 
called  me  back  to  life  and  hope.  It  is  only 
the  poor  who  really  help  the  poor.  I  have 
'been  down  in  the  depths,  and  have  brought 
back  scarcely  an}'thing  more  certain  than 
that  One  does  not  learn  much  in  hell,  ex- 
cept hate,  and  the  out-of-work  foreigner  in 
New  York  is  in  the  worst  hell  known  to  man. 

But  even  that  hell  of  cold  gloom  and  lonely 
misery  was  irradiated  now  and  then  by  rays  of 


THE  BOMB  31 

pure  human  sympathy  and  kindness.  How  well 
I  remember  instance  after  instance  of  this. 
Whenever  I  sank  to  utter  destitution  I  used 
at  first  to  frequent  the  Batten-:  the  swirUng 
waters  seemed  to  draw  me,  lulling  my  pain       » 
with  their  unceasing  threnody^  There  I  paced  CCc^ 
up  and  down  for  houreoFswung  my  arms  toJ^j^/nkM. 
keep  warm,  and  was  often  glad  that  the  numb- 
ing cold  forced  me  to  run  about,  for  some- 
how or  other  one's  thoughts  are  not  so  bitter 
when  one  moves  briskly  as  they  are  when 
sitting  still.     One  night,  however,  I  was  tired 
out,  and  sat  in   the   comer   of   one  of   the 
benches.  I  must  have  slept,  for  I  was  awakened 
by  an  Irish  policeman — 

"Come  now,  get  a  move  on  ye;  ye  can't 
slape  here,  ye  know." 

I  got  up,  but  could  hardly  stir,  I  was  so 
numbed  with  cold,  and  still  half  asleep. 

"Get  on,  get  on,"  said  the  poUceman, 
shoving  me. 

"How  dare  ye  push  the  man!"  cried  a  husky 
woman's  voice;  "he  ain't  hurtin'  the  ould 
sate,  anyway." 

It  was  one  of  the  prostitutes,  Irish  Betsy 
they  called  her,  who  regarded  that  part  of 
the  Battery  as  her  own  particular  preserve 
and  kept  it  sacred  by  a  perfect  readiness  to 
fight  for  it,  though  its  value  must  have  been 
very  small. 


32  THE  BOMB 

The  policeman  took  her  interference  un- 
kindly, and  in  consequence  got  the  rough 
edge  of  Betsy's  tongue.  As  soon  as  I  could 
speak  I  begged  her  not  to  quarrel  for  me;  I 
would  go;  and  I  walked  away.  Betsy  follow- 
ed and  overtook  me  in  a  little  while,  and 
pushed  a  dollar  bill  into  my  hand. 

"I  can't  take  money,"  I  said,  handing  her 
the  bill  back. 

"And  why  not?"  she  asked  hotly;  "you 
nade  it  more  than  me,  an'  when  I  want  it 
some  night  I'll  ask  it  back  from  ye,  the  divil 
doubt  me!     It's  loanin'  it  to  ye,  I  am!" 

Poor,  dear  Betsy!  she  had  the  genius  of 
kindness  in  her,  and  afterwards,  when  times 
went  better  with  me,  I  took  her  to  supper  as 
often  as  I  could,  and  so  learned  her  whole  sad 
story.  Love  was  her  sin,  love  only,  and  like 
all  other  generous  mistakes,  though  it  brought 
punishment  and  contempt  of  others,  it  did  not 
bring  self-contempt.  Betsy  regarded  herself 
as  one  of  the  innocent  victims  of  life,  and  she 
was  probably  justified  in  this,  for  she  kept 
her  goodness   of  heart  all   through. 

Another  scene:  I  had  gone  to  one  place  for 
three  or  four  nights,  where  I  got  a  bed  for  ten 
cents,  and  as  I  shivered  out  into  the  cold  one 
morning  about  five-thirty,  the  hard  Yankee 
who  kept  the  place  suddenly  asked  me — 

"Have  you  had  any  breakfast?" 


'^ 


THE  BOMB  33 

"What's  that  to  you?" 

**Not  much;  but  my  cawfee's  hot,  and  if 
you'll  have  a  cup,  you're  welcome." 

The  tone  was  careless-rough,  but  the  glance 
that  went  with  it  thawed  the  ice  about  my 
heart,  and  I  followed  him  into  his  little  den. 
He  poured  out  the  coffee  and  put  a  steaming 
cup  of  it  and  some  bacon  and  biscuits  before 
me,  and  in  ten  minutes  I  was  a  man  again, 
with  a  man's  heart  in  me  and  a  man's  hope 
and  energy. 

"Do  you  often  give  breakfast  away  like 
this.?"  I  asked  him,  smiling. 

"Sometimes,"  was  the  answer.  I  thanked 
him  for  his  kindness,  and  was  on  the  point 
of  going,  when  he  added,  without  even  look- 
ing at  me — 

"If  you  haven't  got  work  by  to-night  you 
can  come  here  and  sleep  without  the  dime, 
see!"  I  looked  at  him  in  astonishment,  and 
he  went  on  as  if  trying  to  excuse  a  weakness: 
"When  a  man  gets  up  and  goes  out  before 
six  this  weather,  he  wants  work,  and  whoever 
wants  work's  sure  to  find  it  sooner  or  later. 
I  like  to  help  a  man,"  he  added  emphatically. 

I  got  to  know  Jake  Ramsden  well  in  a  few 
weeks;  he  was  harsh  and  silent  like  his  native 
Maine  hills,  but  kindly  at  heart. 

How  I  lived  through  the  seven  months  of 
that  awful  winter  I  can't  tell;  but  I  worried 


34  THE  BOMB 

through  somehow,  and  as  the  spring  came  on 
I  even  gathered  a  few  dollars  and  went  back 
to  my  old  lodging-house,  where  I  boarded 
for  three  dollars  a  week,  and  could  wash  and 
make  myself  decent.  I  had  come  to  look  up- 
on it  as  a  sort  of  luxurious  hotel.  That  win- 
ter taught  me  many  things,  and,  above  all, 
this,  that  however  unfortunate  a  man  is  there 
are  others  worse  off  and  more  unhappy:  the 
misery  of  mankind  is  as  infinite  as  the  sea. 
And  from  this  one  learns  sympathy  and 
courage.  I  suppose  on  the  whole  the  ex- 
periences did  me  more  good  than  harm,  though 
at  the  moment  I  was  inclined  to  believe  that 
they  had  simply  coarsened  my  mind  like  the 
skin  of  my  hands,  and  had  roughened  me  in  a 
hundred  ways.  I  see  now  cleariy  enough  that 
whatever  I  am  or  have  been,  I  was  made  by 
that  winter:  for  good  and  for  evil  I  shall  bear 
the  marks  of  the  struggle  and  suffering  till  I 
die.  I  wish  I  could  believe  that  all  the  pain 
I  had  endured  turned  into  pity  for  others; 
but  there  was  a  residue  in  me  of  bitterness. 

Another  scene  from  this  period  of  my  life, 
and  I'll  be  able  to  tell  how  I  came  out  of  the 
abyss  to  air  and  sunlight  once  more.  One 
evening  in  the  dining-room  an  Englishman 
mentioned  casually  that  any  one  could  get 
work  on  the  foundations  of  the  Brooklyr 
Bridge.     I  could  hardly  believe  my  ears; 


THE  BOMB  35 

was  still  looking  for  steady  employment, 
though  scarcely  daring  to  hope  for  it;  but  he 
went  on:  *'They  want  men,  and  the  pay's 
good:  five  dollars  a  day." 

"Steady  work?"  I  asked,  in  a  tremor. 

"Steady  enough,"  he  answered,  with  a 
scrutinizing  glance  at  me,  "but  few  can  stick 
it,  working  in  compressed  air."  It  appeared 
that  he  had  tried  it  and  was  not  able  to  stand 
it;  but  that  did  not  deter  me.  I  found  out 
from  him  where  to  apply,  and  next  morning 
before  six  o'clock  was  taken  on.  I  could 
scarcely  contain  myself  for  joy:  at  last  I  had 
got  work;  but  the  Englishman's  words  the 
night  before  came  back  to  me:  "It's  few  can 
do  a  shift,  and  in  three  months  every  one  gets 
the  'bends.'  "  A  stern  joy  came  into  me;  if 
others  could  stand  it,  I  could. 

I  suppose  every  one  knows  what  working 
in  a  caisson  on  the  bed  of  a  river,  fifty  feet 
under  water,  is  like.  The  caisson  itself  is  an 
immense  bell-shaped  thing  of  iron;  the  top  of 
it  is  an  apartment  called  "the  material  cham- 
ber," through  which  the  stuff  dug  out  of  the 
river  passes  on  its  way  to  the  air.  High  up, 
on  the  side  of  the  caisson  is  another  chamber 
called  "the  air-lock."  The  caisson  itself  is 
filled  with  compressed  air  to  keep  out  the 
water  which  would  otherwise  fill  the  caisson 
in  an  instant.     The  men  going  to  work  in  the 


36  THE  BOMB 

caisson  first  of  all  pass  into  the  air-lock  cham- 
ber, where  they  are  "compressed"  before 
they  go  to  work,  and  "decompressed"  after 
doing  their  shift. 

Of  course,  I  had  been  told  what  I  should 
feel;  but  when  I  stepped  into  the  air-lock  with 
the  other  men  and  the  door  was  shut  and  one 
little  air-cock  after  another  was  turned  on,  let- 
ing  in  a  stream  of  compressed  air  from  the  cais- 
son, I  could  hardly  help  yelling — the  pain 
stabbed  my  ears.  The  drums  of  the  ears  are 
often  forcibly  driven  in  and  broken ;  some  men 
not  only  become  deaf,  but  have  the  most  in- 
tense earache  and  sympathetic  headache,  at- 
tended with  partial  deafness.  The  only  way 
to  meet  the  pressure  of  the  air  in  the  ear,  I 
quickly  found,  was  to  keep  swallowing  the 
air  and  forcing  it  up  the  Eustachian  tubes  in 
to  the  middle  ear,  so  that  this  air-pad  on  the 
internal  side  of  the  drum  might  lessen  or  pre- 
vent the  painful  depression  of  the  drum. 
During  "compression"  the  blood  keeps  ab- 
sorbing the  gases  of  the  air  till  the  tension  of 
the  .  gases  in  the  blood  becomes  equal  to  that 
in  the  compressed  air;  when  this  equilibrium 
has  been  reached  men  can  work  in  the  cais- 
son for  hours  without  experiencing  serious  in- 
convenience. 

It  took  about  half  an  hour  to  "compress" 
us,  and  that  first  half-hour  was  pretty  hard  to 


THE  BOMB  37 

bear.  When  the  pressure  of  the  air  in  the 
lock  was  equal  to  that  in  the  caisson,  the 
door  from  the  caisson  into  the  air-lock  open- 
ed by  itself  or  at  a  touch,  and  we  all  went 
down  the  ladder  on  to  the  river  bed  and  began 
our  work,  digging  up  the  ground  and  passing 
it  by  lifts  into  the  material  chamber.  The 
work  itself  did  not  seem  very  hard;  one  got 
very  hot,  but  as  one  worked  nearly  naked  it 
didn't  matter  much;  in  fact,  I  was  agreeably 
surprised.  The  noises  were  frightful;  every 
time  I  stooped,  too,  I  felt  as  if  my  head  would 
burst.  But  the  two  hours  will  soon  pass,  I 
said  to  myself,  and  two  shifts  for  five  dollars 
is  good  pay;  in  fifteen  days  I  shall  have  saved 
the  money  I  came  to  New  York  with,  and  then 
we  shall  see;  and  so  I  worked  on,  making 
light  of  the  earache  and  headache,  the  dizzi- 
ness  and  the  infernal  heat. 

At  length  the  shift  came  to  an  end,  and  one 
by  one,  streaming  with  perspiration,  we  pass- 
ed up  again  into  the  air-lock  to  learn  what 
"decompression"  was  like.  We  closed  the 
door;  the  air-cocks  were  turned  on,  letting 
out  the  compressed  air,  and  at  once  we  began 
to  shiver,  the  ordinary  air  was  so  wet  and  cold. 
It  was  as  if  a  stream  of  ice-water  had  been 
turned  into  a  hot  bath.  I  had  noticed  when 
we  got  in  that  the  others  began  to  dress 
hastily;  I  now  knew  why.     I  hauled  on  my 


38  THE  BOMB 

shirt  and  then  my  other  clothes  as  quickly  as 
I  could;  but  the  air  grew  colder  and  colder, 
damper  and  damper,  and  I  began  to  get  weak, 
giddy  and  sick.  I  suppose  the  gases  in  the 
blood  were  leaving  it  as  the  tension  got  less. 
At  the  end  of  an  hour  we  were  "decompressed," 
and  we  all  stepped  out  shivering,  surrounded 
by  a  wet,  yellow  fog,  chilled  to  the  heart. 

Think  of  it;  we  had  been  working  hard  for 
two  hours  in  a  high  temperature,  and  after  our 
work  we  had  this  hour  of  "decompression," 
an  hour  of  rapidly  increasing  cold  and  damp 
mist,  while  even  the  blood  pressure  in  our 
veins  was  constantly  diminishing.  What  with 
the  "compression"  and  the  "decompression," 
the  two  hours'  shift  lasted  nearly  four  hours, 
so  that  two  shifts  a  day  made  a  very  fair 
day's  work — and  such  work!  Most  of  the 
men  took  a  glass  of  hot  spirits  the  moment 
they  got  out,  and  two  or  three  before  they 
went  home.  I  drank  hot  cocoa,  and  very 
glad  I  am  that  I  did.  It  revived  me  as  quick- 
ly as  the  spirits,  I  think,  and  took  away  the 
terrible  feeling  of  chill  and  depression.  Should 
I  be  able  to  stand  the  work.?  I  could  only 
go  on  doggedly,  and  see  how  continuous  work 
affected  me. 

I  had  something  to  eat,  and  lay  about  in 
the  sunshine  till  I  got  warm  and  strong  again: 
but  I  had  still  the  earac  he  and  headache,  and 


\ 


* 


THE  BOMB  39 

felt  dizzy  when  the  time  came  to  go  to 
work. 

The  afternoon  shift  seemed  interminable, 
dreadful.  The  compression  was  not  so  bad; 
I  had  learned  how  to  get  the  air  into  my  ears 
to  meet  the  pressure,  though  whenever  I  for- 
got to  breathe  it  in  and  keep  the  air-pad  full, 
I  paid  at  once  with  a  spasm  of  acute  earache. 
Nor  was  the  work  in  the  caisson  unendurable; 
the  pace  set  was  not  great:  the  heat  comfort- 
ing. But  the  "decompression"  was  simply 
dreadful.  I  was  shivering  like  a  rat  when  it 
was  over,  my  teeth  chattering.  I  could  only 
gasp  and  not  speak,  and  I  easily  let  myself 
be  persuaded  to  take  a  dram  of  hot  spirits 
like  the  rest:  but  I  determined  that  I  would 
not  begin  to  drink;  I  would  bring  thick,  woolen 
under-clothes  with  me  in  the  morning,  all  I 
had  got.  I  went  home  exhausted,  and  with 
such  earache  and  headache  that  I  found  it 
difficult  to  eat,  and  impossible  to  sleep. 

The  horror  of  being  unemployed  drove  me 
to  work  next  day  and  the  next.  How  I  work- 
ed I  don't  know;  but  I  was  recalled  to  think- 
ing life  and  momentary  forgetfulness  of  pain 
by  seeing  a  huge  Swiss  workman  fall  down 
one  morning  as  if  he  were  trying  to  tie  his 
arms  and  legs  in  knots.  I  never  saw  any- 
thing so  horrible  as  the  poor,  twisted,  writh- 
ing form  of  the  unconscious  giant.     Before 


40  THE  BOMB 

we  could  lift  him  on  a  mud-barrow  and 
carry  him  away  to  the  hospital  he  was 
bathed  in  blood,  and  looked  to  me  as  if 
he  were  dead.  **What  is  it?"  I  cried. 
**The  bends,"  said  one,  and  shrugged  his 
shoulders. 

We  had  just  come  out  of  the  air-lock  into 
the  room  where  we  kept  our  clothes  and  food 
and  things,  and  I  began  questioning  the  others 
about  "the  bends."  It  appeared  that  no 
one  worked  for  more  than  two  or  three  months 
without  having  an  attack.  It  generally  laid 
them  up  for  a  fortnight,  and  they  were  never 
the  same  men  afterwards. 

"Do  the  bosses  pay  us  for  the  fortnight?" 
I  asked. 

"You  bet!"  cried  a  workman  savagely; 
"they  keep  us  at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel, 
and  pay  us  fer  restin'." 

"Can  one  only  work  three  months^  then?" 
I  asked. 

"I  have  worked  more  than  that,"  said  an- 
other man;  "but  you  have  got  to  take  care, 
and  not  drink.  Then  I  am  very  thin,  and 
can  stand  it  much  better  than  any  one  inclined 
to  be  stout  like  you." 

"They  could  make  it  easy  enough  for  us," 
said  a  third;  "everybody  knows  that  if  they 
gave  us  ten  thousand  feet  of  fresh  air  an  hour 
in  their  damned  caissons  we  could  stand  it  all 


THE  BOMB  41 

right;*  but  they  only  give  us  a  measly  thousand 
feet.  It  isn't  men's  work  they  buy  at  five 
dollars  a  day,  but  men's  lives,  damn  them!" 

I  noticed  then  that  my  mates  had  the  sullen- 
ness  of  convicts.  It  was  rare  that  one  spoke 
to  his  fellows;  in  silence  we  laboured;  in  si- 
lence we  went  to  our  work,  and  as  soon  as 
we  came  up  into  God's  air  and  sunlight  again, 
each  man  sought  his  home  in  silence.  The 
cloud  fell  on  me;  I  was  not  so  sure  as  I  had 
been  at  first  that  I  should  escape  the  common 
lot.  After  all,  strong  as  I  was,  I  was  not  so 
strong  as  that  young  Swiss  whom  I  could  still 
see,  twisting  about  on  the  ground  like  a  snake 
that  has  been  trodden  on.  However,  I  de- 
termined not  to  think,  and  went  to  my  shifts 
again  a^  if  nothing  had  happened. 

I  had  been  working  in  compressed  air  for 
about  a  fortnight  when  I  saw  a  dreadful  ex- 
ample of  man's  careless  hardihood.  A  young 
American  had  been  working  with  us  for  two 
or  three  days.  This  afternoon  he  wanted 
to  get  out,  he  said,  without  going  through  the 
*' decompression,"  in  order  to  keep  an  appoint- 
ment with  his  girl,  so  he  went  up  on  top  of 
the  mud  lift,  into  the  material  chamber  and 

*  This  workman  was  right.  The  illness  of  men  working  in  cab- 
sons,  which  was  formerly  over  80  per  cent  in  every  three  months 
when  the  air  supplied  was  about  1500  cubic  feet  an  hour, has  now 
dropped  to  8  per  cent  since  the  fresh  air  supply  has  been  increased 
to  10,000  cubic  feet  an  hour. — Editor's  note. 


42  THE  BOMB 

so  into  the  open  air  in  perhaps  five  minutes. 
When  we  came  out,  an  hour  later,  after  having 
passed  through  the  air-lock,  we  found  him 
stretched  on  the  floor  of  the  waiting-room 
with  a  doctor  by  his  side.  He  w  as  unconscious, 
his  breathing  noisy  and  difficult,  his  lips  puff- 
ed out,  blowing  froth.  He  died  in  a  few 
minutes  after  we  came  into  the  room.  It 
seemed  dreadful  to  me;  but  not  so  dreadful 
as  "the  bends."  After  all,  the  man  knew,  or 
ought  to  have  known,  that  he  was  running  a 
great  risk,  and  death  seemed  better  to  me 
than  that  excruciating  physical  torture;  but 
somehow  or  other  these  two  occurrences 
sickened  me  with  the  work.  I  determined 
to  go  on,  if  I  could,  till  the  end  of  the  month, 
and  then  stop,  and  that  is  what  I  did. 

Before  the  end  of  the  month  I  began  to  feel 
weak  and  ill:  I  could  not  sleep,  save  by  fits 
and  starts,  and  I  was  practically  never  free 
from  pain;  still,  I  stuck  it  out  for  a  month, 
and  then  wHith  a  hundred  and  forty  dollars 
saved  I  took  a  fortnight's  rest. 

I  spent  every  afternoon  I  could  with  Hen- 
schel;  he  had  generally  three  or  four  hours 
free,  and  we  went  across  to  Jersey  City  or  to 
Hoboken,  bathing,  or  to  Long  Island,  some- 
where in  the  open  air,  and  sunshine.  At  the 
end  of  the  fortnight,  I  felt  nearly  as  fit  as  ever, 
but  I  have  still  earaches  and  headaches  oc- 


THE^BOMB  43 

casionally  to  remind  me  of  the  Brooklyn 
Bridge.  I  did  not  go  back  to  it;  I  had  done 
my  share  of  underground  work,  I  thought;  I 
would  not  take  the  risk  again.  Even  the 
engineers,  who  had  no  hard  manual  labour 
to  do,  and  earned  four  hundred  dollars  a 
month  for  merely  directing,  could  not  look  on  , 
in  that  air  for  more  than  two  hours  a  day. 
It  was  the  men  doing  the  hardest  work  who 
were  expected  to  labour  for  two  shifts  a  day — 
the  hardest  work,  double  hours,  and  smallest 
wage.  With  the  quick  rebound  of  youth,  I 
soon  consoled  myself;  after  all  I  had  done 
something  and  earned  something,  and  after 
my  fortnight's  rest  I  was  about  again,  as  eager 
as  ever  to  find  work,  but  curiously  soft  after 
my  fortnight's  lazing. 

A  few  days  later  I  heard  of  another  job,  a 
better  one  this  time,  though  it  was  hard  work 
and  not  likely  to  be  permanent.  Still,  it 
might  be  a  beginning,  I  told  myself,  and 
hurried  to  the  place.  They  were  taking  up 
a  street  near  the  docks  to  lay  a  new  gas-pipe, 
and  the  work  was  being  done  by  an  Irish 
contractor.     He  looked  at  me  shrewdly— 

"Ain't  done  much  work,  have  you?" 

''Not  lately," I  replied ; " but  I  will  do  as  much 
as  I  can,  and  in  a  week  as  much  as  any  man." 

"Will  you  turn  in  now  for  half  a  day?"  he 
asked,  "and  then  we'll  talk." 


44  THE  BOMB 

It  was  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
I  knew  he  was  cheating  me,  but  I  replied, 
"Certainly,"  and  my  heart  lifted  to  hope. 
In  ten  minutes  I  had  a  pick  in  my  hand,  and 
space  to  use  it.  God,  the  joy  of  it,  steady 
work  at  last  in  the  open  air!  Once  more  I 
was  a  man,  and  had  a  place  in  the  world. 
But  the  joy  did  not  last  long.  It  was  the  be- 
ginning of  July  and  furiously  hot;  I  suppose 
I  went  at  the  work  too  hard,  for  in  half  an  hour 
I  was  streaming  with  perspiration;  my  trou- 
sers were  wet  through,  and  my  hands  pain- 
fully sore;  the  fortnight's  rest  had  made  them 
soft.  One  of  the  gang,  an  oldish  man,  took 
it  upon  himself  to  advise  me.  He  was  evi- 
dently Irish;  he  looked  at  me  with  cunning 
grey  eyes,  and  said — 

"  You  don't  need  to  belt  that  pick  in  as  if  you 
were  going  to  reach  Australy.  Take  it  aisy, 
man,  and  leave  some  work  for  us  to-morrow." 

The  others  all  laughed.  I  found  the  ad- 
vice excellent,  and  began  to  copy  my  fellows, 
using  skill  and  sparing  strength.  When  I 
returned  to  work  after  dinner  my  back  felt 
as  if  it  had  been  broken;  but  I  hung  on  till 
night,  and  got  a  word  of  modified  approval 
from  the  boss. 

"For  the  first  week  I'll  give  you  two  dollars 
a  day,"  he  grunted;  "ye're  not  worth  more 
with    thim   hands." 


THE  BOMB  45 

I  could  not  bargain:  I  dared  not. 

"All  right,"  I  said  sullenly. 

*'Be  here  at  six  sharp,"  he  went  on;  "if 
ye're  late  five  minutes  ye'll  be  docked  half-a- 
day;  mind  that  now." 

I  nodded  my  comprehension,  and  he  went 
his  way. 

I  was  very  tired  as  I  walked  home,  but  glad, 
glad  at  heart.  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  feeling 
that  I  had  earned  my  living  for  the  day,  and 
a  bit  over,  with  pick  and  shovel,  and  surely 
there  was  enough  work  of  that  sort  to  be  done 
in  Ainerica.  In  youth  one  is  an  optimist  and 
finds  it  hard  to  nurse  bitterness;  it  is  so  much 
easier  to  hope  than  to  hate.  One  week's 
work,  I  calculated,  would  keep  me  for  three 
or  four  weeks,  and  this  fact  held  in  it  a  world 
of  satisfaction. 

I  had  a  great  evening  meal  that  night,  and 
drank  innumerable  cups  of  so-called  coffee, 
and  then  went  to  bed  and  slept  from  about 
seven  till  five  next  morning,  when  I  awoke 
feeling  very  well  indeed,  though  horribly, 
painfully  stiff.  That  would  soon  wear  off,  I 
told  myself;  but  the  worst  of  it  was  that  my 
hands  were  in  a  shocking  state;  blisters  had 
formed  all  over  them  and  here  and  there  had 
broken,  and  I  could  not  use  them  without 
pain.  The  next  day's  work  was  excruciating, 
and  my  hands  were  bleeding  freely  before 


40  THE  BOMB 

noon;  but  the  old  Irishman  in  the  dinner  hour 
bathed  them  with  whiskey,  which  certainly 
dried  up  the  wounds.  I  felt  as  if  he  had 
poured  liquid  fire  over  them,  and  the  smart 
held  throughout  the  afternoon.  For  the  next 
three  or  four  days  the  work  was  very  painful; 
my  hands  seemed  to  get  worse  rather  than 
better;  but  when  they  became  so  sore  that  I 
had  to  change  tools  as  often  as  I  possibly 
could,  they  began  to  mend,  and  by  the  end  of 
the  week  I  could  do  my  day's  stunt  without 
pain  or  fatigue  worth  mentioning. 

The  job  lasted  three  weeks,  and  when  it 
was  over  the  boss  gave  me  his  address,  in 
Brooklyn  and  told  me  if  I  wanted  work  he 
would  give  it  me.  I  was  the  only  man  he 
picked  out  in  this  way.  My  heart  rose  again. 
I  thanked  him.  After  all,  I  said  to  myself 
as  I  went  home,  it's  worth  while  doing  a  bit 
more  than  other  men;  one  gets  work  easier. 

My  new  job  was  road-making,  and  I  was 
only  one  of  a  hundred  men  employed.  At 
the  end  of  a  few  weeks  the  boss  said  to  me 
suddenly — 

"Shure,  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  work 
wid  your  hands,  and  you  an  edjicated  man! 
Why  don't  you  take  a  sub-contract?" 

"How  can  I  get  a  sub-contract?"  I  asked. 

"I'll  give  you  one,"  said  he.  "See  here 
now;  I  get  five  dollars  a  yard  for  this  road, 


THE  BOMB  47 

and  the  stone  found  me;  if  you  want  to  take 
fifty  yards  or  a  hundred  yards  I'll  give  them 
to  yez  at  four  dollars  a  yard;  a  man  must  make 
a  little  on  a  contract,"  he  added  cunningly, 
*'and  j^our  profit'll  be  big." 

I  was  very  grateful  to  him,  I  remember, 
just  as  grateful  as  if  he  had  been  trying  to  do 
me  a  kindness,  which  was  certainly  not  the 
case. 

"But  how  am  I  to  pay  men .?"  I  asked. 

"That's  your  business,"  he  replied  indiffer- 
ently. I  hesitated  a  little,  but  next  day  I 
contracted  to  take  a  hundred  yards  and  went 
to  work  to  find  labourers.  Strange  to  say  it 
was  hard  to  get  men;  I  could  only  find  casuals 
— here  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow — and  they 
were  anything  but  energetic.  I  made  up 
for  their  laziness  by  working  double  hours, 
and  by  the  end  of  the  week  I  had  got  five  or 
six  fairly  good  men  working  for  me.  After 
I  had  completed  the  first  fifty  yards  of  work 
I  was  astounded  at  my  profit.  I  had  to  pay 
about  a  hundred  dollars  for  labour,  and  had 
a  hundred  dollars  for  myself. 

Naturally  I  wanted  as  much  of  this  work 
as  I  could  get,  and  the  boss  let  me  have  two 
hundred  yards  more;  but  now  I  had  worse 
luck.  It  was  the  end  of  October,  and  we  had 
heavy  rains,  then  it  froze  hard  and  snow  fell. 
I  soon  found  that  I  should  have  to  drive  the 


48  THE  BOMB 

men  or  scamp  the  work,  or  be  content  with 
little  or  no  profit.  I  hardly  made  as  much 
over  the  next  two  hundred  yards  as  I  had 
made  over  the  first  fifty.  Still,  my  month's 
work  had  yielded  over  a  hundred  dollars  net 
profit,  and  with  that  I  was  content. 

One  day,  talking  with  the  old  Irishman  who 
had  worked  with  me  on  my  first  job,  and  who 
was  now  working  for  me,  I  happened  to  say 
that  if  the  frost  held  I  should  lose  money. 

**  Hwat's  that  ye  say  ?"  he  asked  suspiciously. 

"It  costs  me  four  dollars  a  yard,  now,"  I 
explained  ruefully. 

"An'  you  gettin'  six  an'  sivin,"  he  retorted 
with  derision. 

"Four,"  I  corrected. 

"Thin  you've  bin  chated,"  he  concluded; 
"the  ould  un's  gettin'  eight." 

I  thought  he  was  simply  talking  loosely, 
and  paid  no  further  attention  to  him.  Still 
I  tried  to  get  a  little  better  contract  out  of  the 
boss;  I  failed,  however,  completely;  it  was 
four  dollars  a  yard,  take  it  or  leave  it,  with 
him. 

I  took  another  two  hundred  yards  at  this 
price;  but  now  luck  ran  dead  against  me. 
It  froze  all  through  that  wretched  December 
and  January,  froze  hard,  and  when  we  tore 
up  the  road  to  lay  the  stones  one  day,  we  had 
to  do  the  work  all  over  again  the  next  day. 


THE  BOMB  49 

At  the  end  of  the  month's  work  I  had  lost  fifty 
dollars,  though  I  myself  had  worked  sixteen 
hours  a  day.  I  remonstrated  with  the  boss, 
told  him  it  was  not  good  enough  to  keep  on 
at  such  a  rate;  but  he  would  not  let  me  have 
a  cent  more  than  my  contract  price,  and  swore 
by  all  his  gods  that  he  was  only  getting  five 
dollars  himself,  and  could  not  afford  to  allow 
me  a  cent  more  for  the  weather.  "We  have 
all  to  take  the  scats  with  the  good  spuds," 
he  said. 

Now  that  I  knew  exactly  what  the  work  cost, 
I  could  not  believe  him,  so  I  took  a  day  off 
and  went  with  the  old  Irishman  to  find  out 
if  he  was  telling  the  truth.     A  few  drinks  in 
an  Irish  saloon,  a  talk  with  a  captain  of  Tarn-  r 
many,  and  I  soon  discovered  that  the  con-  ' 
tract  was  given  to  the  boss  at  ten  dollars  a  I 
yard;  ten,  though  it  could  have  been  done  • 
profitably  for  five.     I  found  out  more  even  than  ; 
that.     My  boss  had  sent  in  a  claim  for  extra  ; 
money  because  of  the  bad  weather,  and  had 
been  allowed  three  dollars  a  yard  on  the  work 
I  had  done  in  the  last  two  months.     Then 
I  understood  clearly  how  men  get  rich.     Here 
was    an    uneducated    Irishman    making    ten 
thousand  dollars  a  year  out  of  the  city  con- 
tract.    True,  he  had  to  give  something  to  the 
Tammany  officials  in  bribes,  but  he  always 
'*made  ^  poor  mouth,"  as  they  said,  pretend- 


60  THE  BOMB 

ing  to  be  hard  up,  and  in  the  year,  I  am  cer- 
tain, never  disbursed  more  than  five  hundred 
dollars  in  palm  oil. 

I  found  all  this  out  in  one  forenoon.  I 
thanked  the  old  Irish  labourer,  and  treated 
him,  and  then  went  oflp  to  call  on  Henschel 
and  spend  the  afternoon  with  him.  He,  too, 
wanted  to  see  me.  He  had  got  to  know  the 
editor  of  the  "Vorwaerts,"  he  told  me,  the 
Socialist  paper  in  New  York,  and  he  asked 
me  to  go  up  and  see  Dr.  Goldschmidt,  the 
editor. 

I  was  in  the  right  humour.  I  could  not 
bear  to  think  of  going  on  working  for  that 
swindling  Irish  contractor;  nor  could  I  make 
up  my  mind  to  take  the  advice  of  the  old 
Irishman,  who  said,  "Now  you  have  the 
truth,  force  the  swindling  old  baste  to  give 
you  sivin  dollars  a  yard,  or  threaten  him  wid 
the  papers  you'll  write  to;  that'll  frighten  him." 

I  didn't  want  to  frighten  the  boss,  nor 
would  I  take  any  part  in  his  thieving.  I 
merely  wished  to  be  quit  of  him  and  to  forget 
the  whole  sordid  story.  After  all,  I  had  two 
or  three  hundred  dollars  behind  me  now,  and 
my  experiences  cried  to  be  given  form  and  to 
be  set  out  in  print. 

I  went  with  Henschel  to  see  Dr.  Gold- 
schmidt, and  found  him  to  be  a  pleasant  man, 
a  Jew,  of  good  education,  and  with  a  certain 


THE  BOMB  51 

kindliness  in  him  that  attracted  me.  He 
asked  me  what  I  proposed  to  write  about.  I 
said  I  could  give  my  experiences  as  an  out- 
of-work  or  as  a  day-labourer  with  pick  and 
shovel,  or  I  could  write  on  the  Socialism  of 
Plato.  I  had  had  this  subject  in  mind  when 
I  first  visited  the  newspaper  offices  months 
before.  Now  Plato  and  his  Republic  sounded 
ridiculous  in  my  ears;  I  had  fresher  fish  to 
fry.  Goldschmidt  was  evidently  of  the  same 
opinion;  for  he  laughed  at  the  suggestion  of 
Plato,  and  as  he  laughed,  it  suddenly  became 
clear  to  me  that  I  had  gone  a  long  way  in 
thought  during  my  year  in  New  York.  All 
at  once  I  realized  that  my  experiences  as  an 
emigrant  had  made  a  man  of  me;  that  those 
twelve  or  fifteen  months  of  fruitless  striving 
to  get  work  had  turned  me  into  a  reformer 
if  not  yet  into  a  rebel. 

"  Let  me  write  on  what  I  have  gone  through," 
I  said  finally  to  Goldschmidt.  "After  all, 
the  pick  and  shovel  are  as  interesting  as 
sword  and  hauberk,  and  the  old  knights  who 
went  forth  to  fight  dragons  had  nothing  to 
meet  so  fearful  as  compressed  air." 

"  Compressed  air .?"  he  caught  me  up.  "  What 
do  you  mean?    Tell  me  about  that." 

He  had  certainly  the  journalist  scent  for  a 
novelty  and  sensation,  so  I  told  him  my  story; 
but  I  could  not  talk  merely  about  my  work  in 


52  THE  BOMB 

the  caissons.  I  told  him  nearly  everything 
I  have  set  down  here,  and,  worst  of  all,  I  gave 
him  the  lessons  first,  and  not  the  incidents,  in 
my  serious  German  way;  told  him  that  manual 
work  is  so  hard,  so  exhausting  in  the  Ameri- 
can climate,  that  it  turns  one  into  a  soulless 
brute.  One  is  too  tired  at  night  to  think,  or 
even  take  any  interest  in  what  is  going  on  in 
the  world.  The  workman  who  reads  an 
evening  paper  is  rare.  The  Sunday  paper 
is  his  only  mental  food ;  on  week  days  he  labours 
and  eats  and  then  turns  in.  The  conditions  of 
manual  labour  in  the  States  are  breeding  a  pro- 
letariat ready  for  revolt.  Every  man  needs 
some  rest  in  life,  some  hours  of  enjoyment.  But 
the  labourer  has  no  time  for  recreation.  He 
dare  not  take  a  day's  respite;  for  if  he  does 
he  may  lose  his  job,  and  probably  have  more 
leisure  than  he  wants. 

My  view  of  the  position  seemed  to  strike 
the  doctor  as  interesting;  but  my  experiences 
in  the  caissons  clinched  the  matter. 

"Write  all  the  out-of-work  part,"  he  said, 
"and  end  up  with  your  days  in  the  caisson. 
I  know  something  about  that  job.  The  con- 
tractors are  to  get  sixty  million  dollars  for  it, 
and  I  suppose  it'll  not  cost  twenty;  but  I'll 
look  it  all  out  and  back  your  story  up  with 
some  hard  facts." 

"But  does  any  one  make  two  hundred  per 


THE  BOMB  63 

cent  on  a  contract?"  I  asked,  forgetting  for 
the  moment  my  Irish  boss  who  wanted  at 
least  a  twofold  profit  and  as  much  more  as  he 
could  get  by  lying. 

" Certainly,"  replied  Goldschmidt.  "There 
are  only  a  few  competitors,  if  any,  for  a  big 
job,  and  the  two  or  three  men  who  are  willing 
and  able  to  take  it  on,  are  apt  to  open  their 
mouths  pretty  wide." 

Bit  by  bit,  it  was  being  forced  in  on  me 
that  our  competitive  system  is  an  organized 
swindle. 

I  went  oS  determined  to  write  a  telling 
series  of  articles.  While  talking  to  Gold- 
schmidt I  had  made  up  my  mind  not  to  go 
back  to  the  road-making;  it  was  all  brainless, 
uninteresting,  stupefying  to  me,  and  the  cor- 
ruption in  it  horribly  distasteful.  An  hour's 
talk  with  an  educated  man  had  turned  me 
against  it  forever.  I  hated  even  to  meet  that 
lying  boss  again.  I  would  not  meet  him.  I 
ached  to  get  back  to  my  books  and  clean 
clothes  and  studious  habits  of  life. 

I  took  rooms  up  town,  but  on  the  east  side, 
very  simple  rooms,  which  cost  me,  with  break- 
fast and  tea,  about  ten  dollars  a  week,  and 
went  to  work  with  my  pen.  I  soon  found  that 
labour  with  the  pick  and  shovel  in  the  bitter 
weather  had  made  it  almost  impossible  for  me 
to  use  the  pen  at  all.     My  brain  seemed  tired, 


54  THE  BOMB 

words  came  slowly,  and  I  soon  grew  sleepy. 
Thinking,  too,  is  a  function  that  needs  exer- 
cise, or  it  becomes  rusty.  But  in  a  week  or 
two  I  wrote  more  freely,  and  in  a  month  had 
finished  a  series  of  German  articles  embody- 
ing my  experiences  as  a  "tenderfoot,"  and 
sent  them  to  Goldschmidt.  He  liked  them, 
said  they  were  excellent,  and  gave  me  a  hun- 
dred dollars  for  them.  When  I  received  his 
letter  I  felt  that  at  long  last  I  had  come  into 
my  own  and  found  my  proper  work.  The 
articles  made  a  sort  of  sensation,  and  I  got 
two  hundred  dollars  more  for  them  in  book 
form.  For  the  next  three  or  four  months  it 
was  easy  enough  by  going  about  New  York 
and  keeping  my  eyes  open  to  get  subjects  for 
two  or  three  articles  a  week.  I  didn't  earn 
much  by  them,  it  is  true;  but,  after  my  ex- 
periences, twenty  to  twenty-five  dollars  a 
week  were  more  than  enough  for  all  my  needs. 

Moreover,  I  felt  that  I  had  solved  the  prob- 
lem. I  could  always  earn  a  living  now  one 
way  or  another  by  pick  and  shovel,  if  not  by 
pen.  I  was  to  that  extent  at  least  master  of 
my  fate. 

One  day  going  into  the  office  of  the  "Vor- 
waerts,"  whom  should  I  run  across  but  Raben» 
Of  course  we  adjourned  immediately  to  a 
German  restaurant  near  by,  and  ordered  a 
German  lunch,  and  many  Seidels  of  German 


THE  BOMB  65 

beer.  He  had  been  working  steadily,  it 
appeared,  ever  since  he  left  the  ship,  but  at 
low  rates.  He  wanted  to  go  to  Chicago,  he 
told  me,  where  the  pay  was  better,  only  he 
had  a  wonder  of  a  girl  whom  he  could  not 
bear  to  leave.  She  was  a  perfect  peach,  he 
added,  and  I  noticed  for  the  first  time  that 
his  lips  were  sensual,  thick. 

While  he  was  speaking  it  came  to  me  that 
I  should  like  to  go  West,  too,  and  break  fresh 
ground.  Those  accursed  months  when  I 
tried  vainly  to  get  work  had  left  in  me  a  dis- 
like of  New  York.  Deep  down  in  me  there 
was  a  fund  of  resentment  and  bitterness. 

"I  should  like  to  go  to  Chicago,"  I  said  to 
Raben.  "Could  you  give  me  an  introduction 
to  any  one.?" 

"Sure,"  he  said,  "to  August  Spies,  the 
owner  and  editor  of  the  'Arbeiter  Zeitung.' 
He  is  a  first-rate  fellow,  a  Saxon,  too,  a  Dres- 
dener.  He  would  be  sure  to  take  you.  All 
you   South   Germans  hang  together." 

I  called  for  pen  and  paper,  and  got  him  to 
write  me  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Spies  then 
and  there. 

The  same  evening,  I  think,  I  went  to  see 
Dr.  Goldschmidt,  and  asked  him  if  I  might 
write  him  a  weekly  letter  from  Chicago,  about 
labour    matters,    and    he    arranged    that    he 

ould  take  one  a  week  from  me,  at  ten  dol- 


56  THE  BOMB 

lars  a  letter;  but  he  told  me  that  I  must  make 
it  a  good  two  columns — two  or  three  thousand 
words  for  ten  dollars — the  pay  was  not  high; 
but  it  ensured  me  against  poverty,  and  that 
was  the  main  thing.  On  the  morrow  I  packed 
my  little  trunk,  and  started  for  Chicago  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  II 

T^HE  long  train  journey  and  the  great 
^  land  spaces  seemed  to  push  my  New 
York  life  into  the  background.  I  had  been 
in  America  considerably  over  a  year.  I  had 
gone  to  New  York  a  raw  youth,  filled  with 
vague  hopes  and  unlimited  ambitions;  I 
was  leaving  it  a  man,  who  knew  what  he  could 
do,  if  he  did  not  know  yet  what  he  wanted. 
By  the  by,  what  did  I  want.^  A  little  easier 
life  and  larger  pay — that  would  come,  I  felt 
— and  what  else  ?  I  had  noticed  going  about 
the  streets  of  New  York  that  the  women  and 
girls  were  prettier,  daintier,  better  gowned 
than  any  I  had  been  accustomed  to  see  in 
Germany.  Many  of  them,  too,  were  dark, 
and  dark  eyes  drew  me  irresistibly.  They 
seemed  proud  and  reserved,  and  didn't  appear 
to  notice  me,  and,  strange  to  say,  that  attracted 
me  as  much  as  anything.  Now  that  the 
struggle  for  existence  left  me  a  little  breathing 
space,  I  would  try,  I  said  to  myself,  to  get  to 
know  some  pretty  girl,  and  make  up  to  her. 
How  is  it,  I  wonder,  that  life  always  gives  you 
your  heart's  desire?  You  may  fashion  your 
ideal  to  your  fancy;  ask  for  what  eye^  and 


58  THE  BOMB 

skin  and  figure  you  like;  if  you  have  only  a 
little  patience,  life  will  bring  your  beauty  to  the 
meeting.  All  our  prayers  are  granted  in  this 
world;  that  is  one  of  the  tragedies  of  life. 
But  I  did  not  know  that  at  the  time.  I  simply 
said  to  myself  that  now  I  could  speak  Ameri- 
can fluently,  I  would  make  love  to  some  pretty 
giri,  and  win  her.  Of  course  I  had  to  find 
out,  too,  all  about  the  conditions  of  labour  in 
Chicago,  for  that  was  what  Goldschmidt 
wanted  in  my  weekly  articles,  and  I  must 
learn  to  speak  and  write  American  perfectly. 
Already  in  my  thoughts  I  had  begun  to  call 
myself  an  American,  so  strongly  did  the  great 
land  with  its  careless  freedom  and  rude 
equality  attract  me.  There  was  power  in 
the  mere  name,  and  distinction  as  well.  I 
would  become  an  American,  and — my  thoughts 
returned  on  themselves — and  a  girl's  face 
fashioned  itself  before  my  eyes,  dainty-dark, 
provocative,  wilful.  .  .  . 

My  year's  work  in  the  open  air  had  made 
me  steel-strong.  I  was  strung  tense  now 
with  the  mere  thought  of  a  kiss,  of  an  embrace. 
I  looked  down  and  took  stock  of  myself.  I 
was  roughly,  but  not  badly  dressed;  just  above 
the  middle  height,  five  feet  nine  or  so;  strongly 
built,  with  broad  shoulders;  my  hair  was  fair, 
eyes  blue,  a  small  moustache  was  just  begin- 
ning to   show   itself   as   golden   down.     She 


THE  BOMB  59 

would  love  me,  too;  she  ,  .  .  the  blood  in  me 
grew  hot;  my  temples  throbbed.  I  rose  and 
walked  through  the  car  to  throw  oflp  my  emo- 
tion; but  I  walked  on  air,  glancing  at  every 
woman  as  I  passed.  I  had  to  read  to  compose 
myself,  and  even  then  her  face  kept  coming 
between  me  and  the  printed  page. 

I  reached  Chicago  late  in  the  evening,  after 
a  forty  hours'  journey.  I  was  not  tired,  and 
in  order  to  save  expense  I  went  at  once  in 
search  of  Spies,  after  leaving  my  baggage 
at  the  depot.  I  found  him  at  the  office  of 
the  "  Arbeiter  Zeitung."  The  office  was  much 
smaller  and  meaner  than  Dr.  Goldschmidt's; 
but  Spies  made  an  excellent  impression  on 
me.  He  was  physically  a  fine,  well  set  up 
fellow,  a  little  taller  than  I  was,  though  per- 
haps not  very  strong.  He  was  well  educated, 
and  spoke  English  almost  as  fluently  as  his 
mother  tongue,  though  with  a  slight  German 
accent.  His  face  was  attractive;  he  had 
thick,  curly  brown  hair,  dark  blue  eyes,  and 
long  moustaches;  he  wore  a  pointed  beard,  too, 
which  seemed  to  accentuate  the  thin  triangle 
of  his  face.  I  found  out,  bit  by  bit,  that  he 
was  very  emotional  and  sentimental.  His 
chin  was  round  and  soft,  like  a  girl's.  His 
actions  were  always  dictated  by  his  feelings 
at  the  moment.  He  met  me  with  a  frank 
kindliness  which  was  charming;  said  that  he 


60  THE  BOMB 

had  read  my  articles  in  "Vorwaerts,*'  and 
hoped  I  would  do  some  work  for  him.  "We 
are  not  rich,"  he  said,  "but  I  can  pay  you 
something,  and  you  must  grow  up  with  the 
paper,"  and  he  laughed. 

He  proposed  that  we  should  go  out  and  sup; 
but  when  I  told  him  I  wanted  lodgings  he 
exclaimed:  "That  fits  exactly.  There  is  a 
Socialist,  George  Engel,  who  keeps  a  toyshop 
between  here  and  the  station.  He  told  me  he 
wanted  a  lodger.  He  has  two  good  rooms,  I 
believe,  and  I  am  sure  you'll  like  him.  Sup- 
pose we  go  and  see  him."  I  assented,  and  we 
set  off,  my  companion  talking  the  while  with 
engaging  frankness  of  his  own  plans  and 
hopes.  As  soon  as  I  saw  Engel  I  knew  we 
should  get  on  together.  He  had  a  round, 
heavy,  goodnatured  face;  he  was  perhaps 
forty-five  or  fifty  years  of  age;  his  brown  hair 
was  getting  thin  on  top.  He  showed  me  the 
rooms,  which  were  clean  and  quiet.  He  was 
evidently  delighted  to  talk  German,  and  pro- 
posed to  take  my  checks  and  bring  my  baggage 
from  the  depot,  and  thus  leave  me  free.  I 
thanked  him  in  our  Bavarian  dialect,  and  his 
eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"Ach  du  liebster  Junge!"  he  cried,  and 
shook  me  by  both  hands.  I  felt  I  had  won 
a  friend,  and  turning  to  Spies  said,  "Now 
we   can   sup   together." 


THE  BOMB  61 

Though  it  was  getting  late,  he  took  me  off 
at  once  to  a  German  restaurant,  where  we  had 
a  good  meal.  Spies  was  an  excellent  compan- 
ion; he  talked  well,  was  indeed,  on  occasion, 
both  interesting  and  persuasive.  Besides,  he 
knew  the  circumstances  of  the  foreign  workers 
in  Chicago  better  than  perhaps  any  one.  He 
had  genuine  pity,  too,  for  their  wants  and  faults, 
sincere   sympathy   with   their  sufferings. 

"Whether  they  come  from  Norway  or 
Germany  or  South  Russia,"  he  told  me, 
"they  are  cheated  for  the  first  two  or  three 
years  by  every  one.  In  fact,  till  they  learn 
to  speak  American  freely  they  are  mere  prey. 
I  want  to  start  a  sort  of  Labour  Bureau  for 
them,  in  which  they  can  get  information  in 
their  mother  tongue  on  all  subjects  that  con- 
cern them.  It  is  their  own  ignorance  which 
makes  them  slaves — pigeons  to  be  plucked." 

"Is  the  life  very  hard.?"  I  asked. 

"In   winter  dreadfully  hard,"   he  replied.' 
"About  thirty-five  per  cent  of  working  men  I 
are  always  out  of  employment;  that  entails  I 
a  sediment  of  misery,  and  our  winters  here  are 
terrible.  ... 

"There  are  some  dreadfully  unfortunate 
cases.  We  had  a  woman  last  week  who 
came  to  our  meeting  to  ask  for  help.  She 
had  three  young  children.  Her  husband  had 
been  employed  in  Thompson's  cheap  jewel- 


62  THE  BOMB 

lery  manufactory.  He  earned  good  wages, 
and  they  were  happy.  One  day  the  fan  broke 
and  he  breathed  the  fumes  of  nitric  acid.  He 
went  home  complaining  of  a  dry  throat  and 
cough;  seemed  to  get  better  in  the  night. 
Next  morning  was  worse;  began  to  spit  thin, 
yellow  stuff.  The  wife  called  in  a  doctor. 
He  prescribed  oxygen  to  breathe.  That  night 
the  man  died.  We  got  up  a  subscription  for 
her,  and  I  went  to  see  the  doctor.  He  told 
me  the  man  had  died  of  breathing  nitrous 
acid  fumes;  it  always  causes  congestion  of  the 
lungs,  and  is  always  fatal  within  forty-eight 
hours.  There  the  wife  is  now,  destitute, 
with  three  children  to  feed,  and  all  because 
the  law  does  not  compel  the  employer  to  put 
up  a  proper  fan.     Life's  brutal  to  the  poor.  .  .  . 

"Besides,  American  employers  discharge 
men  ruthlessly,  and  the  police  and  magistrates 
are  all  against  us  foreigners.  They  are 
getting  worse  and  worse,  too.  I  don't  know 
where  it'll  all  end,"  and  he  went  silent  for  a 
time.  "Of  course  you're  a  Socialist,"  he 
resumed,  "and  will  come  to  our  meetings,  and 
join  our  Verein." 

"I  don't  know  that  you  would  call  me  a 
Socialist,"  I  replied;  "but  my  sympathies 
are  with  the  workmen.  I'd  like  to  come  to 
your  meetings." 

Before  we  parted  he  had  taken  me  round, 


THE  BOMB  63 

and  shown  me  the  lecture-room,  which  was 
quite  close  to  his  newspaper  office,  and  given 
me  a  little  circular  about  the  meetings  for  the 
month.  He  left  me  finally  at  Engel's  door, 
with  the  hope  that  we  might  meet  again  soon. 

It  must  have  been  nearly  midnight  when  I 
got  into  the  house.  Engel  was  waiting  •  up 
for  me,  and  we  had  a  long  talk  in  our  homely 
Bavarian  dialect.  I  told  him  it  was  my  rule 
never  to  speak  German;  but  I  could  not  resist 
the  language  of  my  boyhood.  Engel,  too, 
had  read  my  articles  in  "  Vorwaerts,"  and  was 
delighted  with  them;  he  was  entirely  self- 
taught,  but  not  without  a  certain  shrewdness 
in  judging  men;  a  saving,  careful  soul,  with 
an  immense  fund  of  pure  human  kindness  at 
the  heart  of  him — a  clear  pool  of  love.  We 
parted  great  friends,  and  I  went  to  bed  full 
of  hope  and  had  an  excellent  night. 

Next  morning  I  went  about  looking  at 
Chicago;  then  I  paid  a  visit  to  the  "Arbeiter 
Zeitung"  for  some  statistics  which  I  wanted 
for  my  New  York  article,  and  so  the  day 
drifted  by. 

I  had  been  in  Chicago  a  week  when  I  went 
to  the  first  of  the  Socialist  meetings.  The 
building  was  a  mere  wooden  shanty  at  the 
back  of  some  brick  buildings.  The  room  was 
a  fairly  large  one,  would  seat  perhaps  two 
hundred  and  fifty  people;  it  looked  bare  and 


64  THE  BOMB 

was  simply  furnished  with  wooden  benches 
and  a  low  platform  on  which  stood  a  desk  and 
a  dozen  plain  chairs.  Fortunately  the  weather 
was  very  pleasant,  and  we  could  sit  with  open 
windows;  it  was  about  mid-September,  if  I 
remember  rightly.  The  speakers  could  hold 
forth,  too,  without  being  overheard,  which 
was  perhaps  an  advantage. 

The  first  speaker  rather  amused  me.  He 
was  presented  by  Spies  as  Herr  Fischer,  and 
he  spoke  a  sort  of  German- American  jargon 
that  was  almost  incomprehensible.  His  ideas, 
too,  were  as  inchoate  as  his  speech.  He  be- 
lieved, apparently,  that  the  rich  were  rich 
simply  because  they  had  seized  on  the  land, 
and  on  w^hat  he  called  "the  instruments  of 
production,"  which  enabled  them  to  grind 
the  faces  of  the  poor.  He  had  evidently  read 
"Das  Kapital"  of  Marx,  and  little  or  nothing 
more.  He  did  not  even  understand  the  energy 
generated  by  the  open  competition  of  life. 
He  was  a  sort  of  half-baked  student  of  Euro- 
pean Communism,  with  an  intense  hatred  of 
those;  whom  he  called  "the  robber  rich." 

Fischer  probably  felt  that  he  was  not  carry- 
ing his  audience  with  him,  for  he  suddenly 
left  ojBF  his  sweeping  denunciations  of  the 
wealthy,  and  began  to  deal  with  the  action  of 
the  police  in  Chicago.  In  handling  the  actual 
he  was  a  different  man.     He  told  us  how  the 


THE  BOMB  65 

police  had  begun  by  dispersing  meetings  in 
the  streets  under  the  pretext  that  they  inter- 
fered with  the  traffic;  how  they  went  on  to 
break  up  meetings  held  on  lots  of  waste  ground. 
At  first,  too,  the  police  were  content,  he  said, 
to  hustle  the  speaker  from  his  improvised  plat- 
form, and  quietly  induce  the  crowd  to  move 
on  and  break  up;  lately  they  had  begun  to  use 
their  clubs.  Fischer  remembered  every  meet- 
ing, and  gave  chapter  and  verse  for  his  state- 
ments. It  was  not  for  nothing  that  he  had 
worked  as  a  reporter  on  the  "Arbeiter  Zei- 
tung."  He  had  evidently,  too,  an  uncommon- 
ly vivid  sense  of  fairness  and  justice,  and  was 
exasperated  by  what  he  called  despotic  author- 
ity. He  spoke  now  in  the  exact  spirit  of  the 
American  Constitution.  Free  speech  to  him 
was  a  right  inherent  in  man.  He  declared 
that  he  for  one  would  never  surrender  it,  and 
called  upon  his  audience  to  go  to  the  meetings 
armed  and  resolved  to  maintain  a  right  which 
had  never  before  been  questioned  in  America. 
This  provoked  a  tempest  of  cheers,  and  Fischer 
sat  down  abruptly.  His  argument  was  un- 
impeachable; but  he  did  not  realize  that 
native-born  Americans  would  claim  for  them- 
selves rights  and  privileges  which  they  would 
not  accord  to  foreigners. 

The  next  speaker  was  a  man  of  a  different 
stamp,  a  middle-aged  Jew  called  Breitmayer, 


66  THE  BOMB 

who  spoke  in  favour  of  subscription  for  Spies' 
Labour  Bureau.  He  told  how  the  labourers 
were  exploited  by  the  employers,  and  pointed 
his  discourse  with  story  after  story.  This 
sort  of  talk  I  could  appreciate.  I  had  been 
exploited,  too,  and  I  joined  heartily  in  the 
applause  which  punctuated  the  speech.  To 
Breitmayer  humanity  was  separated  into  two 
camps — the  "Haves"  and  the  ** Have-nots," 
or,  as  he  put  it,  the  masters  and  the  slaves, 
the  wasters  and  the  wanters.  He  never  raised 
his  voice,  and  some  of  his  talk  was  effective; 
but  even  Breitmayer  could  not  keep  off  the 
burning  subject.  A  friend  of  his  had  been 
struck  down  by  a  policeman,  in  the  last  meet- 
ing; he  was  still  in  hospital,  and,  he  feared, 
permanently  injured.  What  crime  had 
Adolph  Stein  committed,  what  wrong  had 
he  done,  to  be  maltreated  in  this  way  ?  Breit- 
mayer, however,  ended  up  tamely.  He  was 
in  favour  of  passive  resistance  as  long  as  possi- 
ble (some  hissing);  "as  long  as  possible,"  he 
repeated  emphatically,  and  the  repetition 
provoked  cheer  upon  cheer.  My  heart  beat 
fast  with  excitement;  evidently  the  people 
were  ripe  for  active  resistance  to  what  they 
regarded    as    tyrannical    oppression. 

After  Breitmayer  sat  down  there  was  a 
moment's  pause,  and  then  a  man  moved  for- 
ward  from   the   side,   and   stood   before   the 


THE  BOMB  67 

meeting.  He  was  a  slight,  ordinary,  nonde- 
script person,  with  a  green  shade  over  his  eyes. 
Spies  went  up  beside  him,  and  explained  that 
Herr  Leiter  had  been  injured  in  a  boiler  ex- 
plosion a  year  before;  he  had  been  taken  to 
the  hospital  and  treated;  had  been  discharged 
two  days  ago,  almost  totally  blind.  He  had 
gone  to  his  former  employers,  Messrs.  Roskill, 
the  famous  soap  manufacturers,  of  the  East 
Side,  who  had  two  thousand  hands,  and  asked 
for  some  light  job.  They  would  give  him 
nothing,  however,  and  he  now  appealed  to 
friends  and  brother  workmen  for  help  in  his 
misfortune.  He  could  see  dimly  at  two  or 
three  yards.  If  he  had  a  couple  of  hundred 
dollars  he  could  open  a  shop  for  all  sorts  of 
soap,  and  perhaps  make  a  living.  At  any 
rate,  with  the  help  of  his  wife,  he  would  not 
starve,  if  he  had  a  shop.  All  this  Spies  told 
in  an  even,  unemotional  voice.  A  collection 
was  made,  and  he  announced  that  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-four  dollars  had  been  collected. 
One  hundred  and  eighty-four  dollars  from 
that  small  gathering  of  working-men  and 
women — it    was    splendidly    generous. 

"I  dank  you  very  mooch,"  said  Herr  Leiter, 
with  a  catch  in  his  voice,  and  retired  on  his 
wife's  arm  to  his  seat.  The  helpless,  hopeless 
pathos  of  the  shambling  figure;  the  patience 
with   which   he   bore   the   awful,    unmerited 


68  THE  BOMB 

disaster,  brought  quick,  hot  tears  to  my  eyes. 
Mr.  Roskill  could  spare  nothing  out  of  his 
millions  to  this  soldier  broken  in  his  service. 
What  were  these  men  made  of  that  they  did 
not  revolt?  Had  I  been  blinded  down  there 
under  water  at  Brooklyn  I  would  have  found 
words  of  fire.  Roskill  had  done  nothing  for 
him.  Was  it  credible.^  I  pushed  my  way 
to  the  platform  and  asked  Leiter  in  German: 
"Nichts  hat  Er  gethan — Nichts?  Nichts  ge- 
geben?"  (*'Did  Roskill  do  nothing?  Give 
you  nothing?") 

"Nichts;  er  sagte  dass  es  ihm  Leid  thaete." 
("Nothing;  he  said  that  he  was  sorry.")  My 
hands  fell  to  my  sides.  I  began  to  understand 
that  resignation  was  a  badge  of  servitude, 
that  such  sheepish  patience  was  inherited. 
In  spite  of  reasons,  my  blood  boiled,  and  pity 
shook  me;  something  must  be  done.  Sudden- 
ly Breitmayer's  words  came  back  to  me, 
"passive  resistance  as  long  as  possible."  The 
limit  must  be  nearly  reached,  I  thought.  I 
could  not  stay  on  at  the  meeting.  I  had  to  get 
by  myself  to  think,  with  the  stars  above  me,  so 
I  made  my  way  to  the  door.  Blind  at  six 
and  twenty,  and  turned  out  to  starve,  as  one 
would  not  turn  out  a  horse  or  a  dog.  It  was 
maddening. 

To  judge  by  the  speeches,  the  working-men 
in  Chicago  were  even  worse  oflf  than  the  work- 


THE  BOMB  00 

ing-men  in  New  York.  Why?  I  could  not 
help  asking  myself:  why?  Probably  because 
there  was  not  so  much  accumulated  wealth, 
and  an  even  more  passionate  desire  to  get 
rich  quickly. 

"'Blind  and  no  compensation,  no  help," 
the  words  seemed  to  be  stamped  on  my  brain 
in  letters  of  fire.  It  was  the  thought  of  Leiter 
that  made  me  join  the  Socialist  Club  two  days 
later. 

I  had  arranged  with  Spies  to  go  about  visit- 
ing the  various  workmen's  clubs,  and  I  went 
to  several  of  them  for  the  sake  of  that  weekly 
article  to  New  York,  and  found  what  I  ex- 
pected to  find.  The  wages  of  the  working- 
man  were  slightly  higher  than  in  New  York, 
but  wherever  it  was  possible  to  cheat  him  he 
was  cheated,  and  the  proportion  of  unem- 
ployed was  larger  than  it  was  on  Manhattan 
Island. 

After  finishing  my  article  on  Leiter  that 
week  for  "  Vorwaerts,"  I  went  down  theMichi- 
gan  Boulevard  and  walked  along  the  Lake 
Shore.  The  broad  expanse  of  water  had  a 
fascination  for  me,  and  I  liked  the  great 
boulevard  and  the  splendid  houses  of  brown 
stone  or  brick,  each  standing  in  its  own  grassy 
lawn.  After  I  had  walked  for  an  hour,  I 
returned  by  the  Boulevard  and  had  an  inter- 
esting  experience.     A  hired   brougham  had 


70  THE  BOMB 

run  into  a  buggy,  or  the  buggy  had  run  into 
the  hired  carriage,  which  was  turning  out  of 
a  cross  street;  at  any  rate,  there  was  a  great 
row;  the  buggy  was  badly  broken  up  and  a 
couple  of  policemen  were  attending  to  the 
horses.     A  crowd  gathered  quickly. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  I  asked  of  my 
neighbour,  who  happened  to  be  a  girl.  She 
turned.  "I  don't  know;  I've  only  just  come," 
and  she  lifted  her  eyes  to  mine. 

Her  face  took  my  breath  away;  it  was  the 
face  of  myjdreams— the  same  dark  eyes,  and 
hair,  the  same  brows;  the  nose  was  a  little 
thinner,  perhaps,  the  outlines  a  little  sharper, 
but  the  confident,  wilful  expressiojo^vvas  there, 
and  the  ff?rk^|_hn^7el^eyeg^  lyerp  d  j vi ne.  Feel- 
ing that  confession  was  the  best  sort  of  intro- 
duction, I  told  her  I  was  a  stranger  in  Chicago; 
I  had  just  come  from  New  York;  I  hoped 
she'd  let  me  know  her.  It  was  so  lonely  for 
me.  As  we  turned  away  from  the  crowd  she 
said  she  thought  I  was  a  foreigner;  there  was 
something  strange  in  my  accent.  I  confessed 
I  was  a  German,  and  pleading  that  it  was  a 
German  custom  to  introduce  oneself,  I  begged 
her  to  allow  me  to  do  so,  adding  in  German 
fashion,  **My  name  is  Rudolph  Schnaubelt." 
In  reply  she  told  me  her  name,  Elsie  Lehman, 
quite  prettily. 

"Are  you  a  German,  too.?" 


I 


THE  BOMB  71 

"Oh,  no!"  she  said;  "my  father  was  a 
German;  he  died  when  I  was  quite  Httle," 
and  then  she  went  on  to  say  that  she  Kved 
alone  with  her  mother,  who  was  a  Southerner. 
I  hoped  I  might  accompany  her  to  her  house; 
she  accepted  my  escort  with  a  prim,  "Certain- 

ly-" 

As  we  walked  we  talked  about  ourselves, 
I  and  I  soon  learned  a  good  deal  about  Elsie. 
J'^She  was  a  typewriter  and  shorthand  writer, 
^^  and  was  engaged  during  the  day  with  Jansen 
^    McClurg  and  Company,  the  booksellers,  but 
^^  was  free  every  evening  after  seven  o'clock.     I 
If* seized  the  chance;  would  she  come  to  the 
theatre   some   night  .'^     She   replied,   flushing, 
that   she'd   be   delighted;   confessed,   indeed, 
that  she   liked   the  theatre  better  than  any 
other   amusement  except  dancing,    so   I   ar- 
ranged to  take  her  to  the  theatre  the  very  next 
night. 

I  parted  with  her  at  the  door  of  the  lodg- 
ing-house where  she  and  her  mother  lived; 
she  asked  me  in  to  make  her  mother's  acquaint- 
ance, but  I  begged  her  to  let  me  come  next 
night  instead,  for  I  was  in  my  working  clothes. 
I  can  still  see  her  standing  at  the  top  of  the 
steps  as  she  said  "good  night"  to  me — the 
slight,  lissom  figure,  the  provocative  dainty 
face^    Oo   L'A  Ua  j 

As  I  went  away  I  wondered  how  she  man- 


72  THE  BOMB  ^ 

aged  to  dress  so  well.  She  looked  a  lady; 
she  was  both  neat  and  smart.  How  could 
she  do  it  on  her  wages  ?  I  did  not  know  then 
as  I  knew  afterwards  that  she  had  a  natural 
gift  for  whatever  was  at  once  becoming  and 
distinguished,  but  the  provocative  beauty  of 
her  ran  in  my  blood  like  wine,  and  before 
I  went  home  I  bought  a  couple  of  papers  in 
order  to  see  exactly  what  theatre  to  select. 
I  suppose  because  I  am  a  German  and  sen- 
timental, and  born  with  an  instinctive  respect  . 
for  women,  I  picked  out  the  most  proper  play 
I  could^nd;  it  was  "As  You  Like  It,"  with  a  ^ 
distinguished  actress  as  Rosalind,  f  ••i  t<^\^^ 

Next  evening  I  dressed  myself  as  well  as 
I  could  in  dark  clothes  with  a  silk  tie  in  a  loose 
bow,  and  went  round  to  fetch  Elsie  at  seven 
o'clock.  I  had  been  thinking  of  her  the  greater 
part  of  the  day,  wondering  if  she  liked  me  as  I 
liked  her,  wondering  if  I  might  ever  kiss  her,  W  Ki 
catching  my  breath  at  the  thought,  for  the  di- 
vine humility  of  love  was  upon  me,  and  Elsie  •, 
seemed  too  dainty  precious  for  possessing.  ^^ 

It  was  her  mother  who  met  me  when  I  called, 
a  washed-out  little  woman,  with  tired,  dark 
eyes,  and  white  linen  things  at  her  neck  and 
wrists,  and  a  faintly  querulous  voice.  She 
told  me  that  Elsie  would  be  down  "right 
away,"  that  she  had  "only  just  got  back  from 
the  store,"  and  was  "fixin'  up." 


THE  BOMB  73 

We  sat  down  and  talked,  or  rather  she  drew 
me  out,  perhaps  without  object,  about  my- 
self and  my  prospects.  I  was  quite  willing 
to  speak,  for  I  was  rather  proud  of  my  posi- 
tion as  a  writer.  She  seemed  to  have  no 
illusions  on  the  subject;  writing,  she  said, 
"was  right  easy  work,"  but  she  guessed  it 
didn't  pay  very  well,  for  "there  was  a  writer 
in  the  boarding  house  where  we  lived  before 
who  used  to  borrow  round  from  everybody 
and  never  paid  anybody  back.  He  did  meet- 
ings and  things":  from  which  I  gathered  he 
was  a  reporter.  While  we  were  still  chatting 
about  the  impecunious  and  unscrupulous 
reporter,  Elsie  came  in  and  took  my  senses 
captive. 

She  was  dressed  in  a  sort  of  light  corn- 
coloured  tussore,  and  had  a  crimson  rose  in 
her  dark  hair,  just  above  the  ear.  She  had 
thrown  on  a  scarf  of  a  deeper  yellow  as  head- 
dress— she  had  the  colouring,  and  all  the 
dainty  grace  of  a  flower.  I  told  her  the  dress 
was  like  a  daffodil,  and  she  bowed  to  the 
compliment  with  smiling  lips  and  eyes.  It 
was  quite  fine  and  warm,  sojve  walked  to  the 
theatre.  Once  or  twice  my  arm  touched  hers 
as  we  walked,  and  new  pulses  came  to  life  in 
me. 
f  w4S  What  an  evening  we  had!  I  had  read  the 
/itt  play,  but  had  never  seen  it,  and  it  was  all  en- 


74  THE  BOMB 

chantment  to  me.  Between  the  acts  Elsie  told 
me  that  she  was  enjoying  it  too;  but  she  ob- 
jected to  Rosalind's  dress.  "It  wasn't  decent," 
she  said,  **no  nice  woman  w^ould  wear  it," 
and  she  scoffed  at  the  idea  that  Orlando  could 
take  Rosalind  for  a  boy.  "He  must  have 
known  her,"  she  declared,  "unless  he  was  a 
gump;  no  man  could  be  so  silly."  She  did 
not  like  Jacques  particularly,  and  the  court 
in  the  forest  seemed  to  her  ridiculous. 

Before  the  evening  was  over  she  had  made 
on  me  the  impression  of  a  definite,  strong 
personality.  Her  beauty  was  fragile,  flower- 
like,  appealing;  her  nature  curiously  master- 
ful-imperious. To  me  she  has  always  since 
been  touched  with  something  of  the  magic  of 
Rosalind;  for  Elsie,  too,  was  hardly  used  by 
fortune,  and  I  liked  her  the  better  because  she 
w^as  far  stronger  than  Rosalind,  far  more 
determined  to  make  her  ow^n  way  in  this  rough 
world. 

She  liked  the  lights  and  the  crowd  and  the 
pretty  dresses,  and  showed  perfect  self-con- 
fidence. 

"I  love  the  theatre,"  she  cried.  "What  a 
pity  it  is  it's  not  real,  not  life." 

"More  real,"  I  said,  in  my  didactic  German 
way;  "it  should  be  the  quintessence  of  life." 

Elsie  looked  at  me  in  astonishment. 

"Sometimes  you're  funny,"  she  said,  and 


THE  BOMB  75 

laughed  out  loud,  I  could  not  make  out  why. 

As  we  came  away  after  the  theatre  was 
over,  we  passed  a  tall,  dark  girl,  not  nearly 
so  good-looking  as  Elsie,  with  a  row  of  mag- 
nificent pearls  round  her  neck. 

''Homely,  wasn't  she.?"  said  Elsie  to  me, 
as  we  went  out.  "But  did  you  see  her  pearls 
and  that  lovely  dress.?" 

''No,"  I  replied,  "I  didn't  notice  it  partic- 
ularly." 

She  described  it  to  me,  said  she  would  like 
such  a  dress;  she  just  loved  to  imagine  she 
was  rich.  "When  I  see  a  pretty  dress,"  she 
went  on,  "I  fancy  I  am  wearing  it  for  the  rest 
of  the  day,  and  I'm  quite  happy.  Happiness 
is  half  make-believe,  don't  you  think?" 

"A  good  part  of  it,"  I  replied,  wondering 
at  her  wisdom.  "And  make-believe  is  great 
fun,"  I  went  on,  "but  a  little  hard  to  practise 
as  one  grows  older." 

"You  talk  like  Methuselah,"  she  retorted, 
"but  you're  not  more  than  twenty." 

"Oh  yes,  I  am,"  I  shot  back;  but  I  didn't 
tell  her  how  near  she  had  come  to  the  truth. 

When  we  got  to  her  door  the  house  was  all 
dark;  but  her  mother,  she  said,  would  be  sure 
i^j  be  sitting  up  for  her.     Quite  naturally,  as^ 
we  said  "good  night,"  she  lifted  up  her  face_ 
to  me.       I  put  my  arms  round  her  eagerly 
and  kissed  her  on  the  lips.     I  made  an  ap- 


76  THE  BOMB 

pointment  for  the  next  evening  to  take  her 
for  a  walk,  and  went  home  with  the  feeling  of 
her  body  on  my  arms,  and  hands,  and  the 
fragrance  of  her  warm  lips  on  mine. 

Engel  had  not  gone  to  bed;  he  never  did 
go  to  bed  till  all  hours.  I  could  not  talk  to 
him  about  Elsie,  so  I  told  him  a  little  about  the 
play,  and  then  hastened  to  my  room.  I 
wanted  to  be  alone,  so  as  to  re-live  the  strange, 
sweet  sensations.  Again  and  again  I  put  my 
arms  round  her  slender,  supple  waist,  and 
kissed  her  lips;  they  were  silken-soft;  but  the 
imagining  only  set  my  blood  aflame,  and  that 
was  not  needed.  At  last  I  got  a  book  and 
read  myself  to  sleep. 

From  time  to  time  after  that  first  night  Elsie 
and  I  met.  When  the  evening  was  fine  we 
took  long  walks;  her  favourite  walk  was 
Michigan  Boulevard,  or  the  Park.  "There," 
she  said,  *'life  was  graceful  and  beautiful.'* 
I  learned  many  things  from  her.  I  think 
she  showed  me  the  aristocratic  view  of  life; 
she  certainly  taught  me  how  to  speak  American 
like  an  American.  In  some  way  or  other  she 
increased  my  desire  to  become  an  American. 
She  excited  my  ambition,  too;  wanted  to  know 
why  I  did  not  write  for  the  American  papers 
instead  of  for  the  ugly  little  German  papers 
\  that  no  one  cared  anything  about.  In  all 
\  cases  she  was  on  the  side  of  the  prosperous 


THE  BOMB  ^. 

and  the  powerful,  against  the  dispossessed 
and  the  poor. 

But  she  Hked  me,  and  we  were  boy  and  girl 
together,  and  sometimes  we  got  beyond  the 
sordid  facts  of  existence.  She  used  to  let  me 
kiss  her,  and  as  she  got  accustomed  to  going 
out  with  me,  she  yielded  now  and  then  for  a 
moment  or  so,  at  least  in  spirit,  to  my  desire. 
I  had  not  known  her  for  a  week  when  I  wanted 
to  become  engaged  to  her,  verlobU  after  the 
serious  German  fashion,  and  I  thought  I 
chose  my  time  for  the  proposal  very  cunningly. 
We  were  on  a  bench  looking  out  over  the 
Great  Lake,  silence  about  us,  and  the  sun- 
light a  golden  pathway  on  the  waters.  We 
had  been  seated  side  by  side  for  some  time. 
At  length  I  grew  bolder  and  gathered  her  in 
my  arms :  as  I  kissed  her  she  seemed  all  mine. 

"I  want  to  get  an  engagement  ring  for  you, 
dear,"  I  said.  "What  would  you  like?" 
She  straightened  herself  up  and  shook  her 
dark  curls  rebelliously. 

"Don't  be  crazy,"  she  said;  "you  have 
nothing  to  marry  on,  and  I  have  nothing. 
It's  just  silly.  Now  we  will  go  home,"  and  in 
spite  of  all  I  could  say,  she  started  off  for  the 
Boulevard  and  home. 

I  suppose  the  sense  of  difficulty  increased  my 
ardour;  at  any  rate,  I  remember,  in  a  week  or 
two  she  was  the  rose  of  life  to  me,  and  every 


6  THE  BOMB 

moment  lived  away  from  her  was  tedious-flat. 
It  was  Elsie  who  first  taught  me  love's 
magic,  the  beauty  that  never  was  on  earth  or 
sea.  She  transfigured  life  for  me,  and  made 
even  the  garment  of  it  adorable.  When  I 
was  with  her  I  lived  to  a  higher  intensity — 
my  senses  inconceivably  keen  and  quick — 
and  all  the  while  the  witchery  of  her  was  in 
the  air  and  sunlight  as  well  as  in  my  blood. 
When  she  left  me  I  was  dull  and  lonely-sad; 
all  the  vivid  world  went  grey  and  sombre.  As 
I  met  her  frequently  the  glamour  became 
charm,  and  passion  grew  more  and  more 
imperious.  She  met  my  desire  in  a  way  that 
delighted  me:  often  a  glow  of  responsive  heat 
came  in  her  cheeks  and  lips;  but  her  self- 
control  puzzled  me.  She  did  not  like  to  yield 
to  the  sensuous  spell  or  even  to  be  forced  to 
acknowledge  its  reality.  At  first  I  put  her 
resistance  down  to  her  regard  for  convention, 
and  as  I  was  frightened  of  losing  the  com- 
panionship that  had  grown  dear  to  me,  I  did 
not  press  her  unduly.  To  hold  the  beauty  of 
her  in  my  arms  and  kiss  her  lips  was  intoxicat- 
ing to  me,  and  I  could  not  risk  offending  her. 
But  when  her  lips  grew  hot  on  mine  I  would 
try  to  kiss  her  neck  or  push  up  her  sleeve  and 
kiss  her  arm  in  the  tender  inward  that  was 
like  a  flower,  an  ivory  white  petal  all  freaked 
with  violet  tracery. 


THE  BOMB  79 

"No,  you  must  not,"  she  cried;  "I  like  you, 
like  you  very  much;  you're  good  and  kind, 
I'm  sure;  but  it's  wrong;  oh  yes,  it  is,  and  we're 
too  poor  to  marry,  so  there.  You  must  be- 
have. Boy."  ("Boy"  was  her  pet  name  for 
me.)  "I  like  your  blue  eyes,"  she  went  on 
meditatively,  "and  your  strength  and  height 
and  moustache"  (and  she  touched  it,  smiling.) 
"But,  no!  no!  no!  I'll  go  home  if  you  don't 
stop." 

Of  course  I  obeyed,  but  only  to  begin  again 
a  minute  or  two  later.  My  desire  was  un- 
controllable; I  loved  Elsie;  the  more  I  knew 
of  her  the  more  I  loved  her;  but  while  the 
affection  and  tenderness  lay  deep,  passion  was 
on  the  surface,  so  to  speak,  headstrong  and 
imperious;  it  was  not  to  be  bridled,  whipped 
to  madness  as  it  was  by  curiosity.  My  only 
excuse  was  my  youth,  for  I  could  not  help 
wanting  to  touch  her,  to  caress  her,  and  my 
hands  were  as  inquisitive  as  my  eyes. 

As  soon  as  my  desire  became  too  manifest 
she  checked  me;  as  long  as  it  seemed  uncon- 
scious she  allowed  me  almost  complete  free- 
dom. When  away  from  her  I  used  to  wonder 
whether  it  was  real  modesty  which  moved  her, 
or  shyness  of  the  palpable,  dislike  of  the  avow- 
ed. 

I  quickly  found  that  if  I  made  her  share  my 
,  fever,  induced  her  to  abandon  herself  even  for 


80  THE  BOMB 

a  moment  to  her  feelings,  she  was  sure  after- 
wards to  punish  me  for  this  yielding  and  close 
the  passage  by  leaving  me  in  a  pet. 

"No,  sir,  don't  come  with  me.  I  can  find 
my  way  home,  thank  you.  Good-bye,"  and 
the  imperious  beauty  swept  away,  and  I  was 
punished. 

Left  in  this  way  one  evening,  I  turned  and 
walked  down  to  the  lake  shore.  Elsie  did  not 
like  the  shore,  it  was  bare  and  ugly,  she  said; 
no  grass  would  grow  there  and  no  trees;  it 
was  desolate  and  wild,  too,  and  only  hateful, 
common  people  walked  there;  but  the  illimi- 
table prospect  of  the  waste  of  water  always 
drew  me,  so  now  I  followed  my  humour. 

I  had  not  walked  over  half  a  mile  when  I 
came  upon  a  great  meeting.  A  man  was 
speaking  from  a  cart  to  a  crowd  that  must 
have  numbered  two  or  three  thousand  persons. 
The  speaker  was  a  tall  American  and  evidently 
a  practised  orator,  with  a  fine  tenor  voice. 
He  interested  me  at  once:  his  forehead  was 
high;  his  features  well  cut;  his  dark  moustache 
waved  up  a  little  at  the  ends.  There  was 
something  captivating  in  the  man's  picturesque 
speech  and  manifest  sincerity.  He  seemed 
to  have  travelled  a  good  deal  and  read  a  good 
deal,  and  when  I  came  to  the  outskirts  of  the 
crowd  I  found  every  one  hanging  on  his  lips. 

"Who  is  it?"  I  asked.     I  was  told  at  once 


THE  BOMB  81 

that  he  was  a  man  called  Parsons,  the  editor 
of  "The  Alarm,"  a  Labour  paper.  He  was 
speaking  about  the  Eight  Hour  Bill,  which 
the  Labour  party  hoped  to  get  passed  that 
Session,  and  he  was  contrasting  the  lot  of  the 
rich  yonder  on  Michigan  Boulevard  with  the 
lot  of  the  poor.  He  spoke  well,  and  the  crude 
opposites  of  life  were  all  about  him  to  give 
point  to  his  words.  There,  a  couple  of  hun- 
dred yards  away,  the  rich  were  driving  in 
their  carriages,  with  costly  wraps  about 
them,  and  servants  to  wait  on  them,  and  round 
about  him  and  before  him  the  producers,  the 
workmen  who  could  hardly  be  sure  of  their 
next  meal ;  the  text  was  splendidly  illustrated. 
''You  workmen  make  the  carriages,"  he 
cried,  "and  the  rich  drive  in  them;  you  build 
the  great  houses  and  they  live  in  them.  All 
over  the  world  workmen  are  now  preparing 
delicacies  for  them;  dogs  are  being  bred  for 
them  in  China  and  goldfish  in  Cuba.  In  the 
frozen  North  men  with  frost-bitten  fingers  are 
trapping  animals  so  that  these  worthless  lazers 
may  drive  in  furs;  in  sun-baked  Florida  other 
men  are  raising  fruit  for  them;  your  children 
go  hungry  and  half-naked  in  the  bitter  winter, 
while  they  waste  fifty  thousand  dollars  on  a 
meal  and  keep  footmen  to  put  silk  stockings 
'^^   toy  dogs." 

le  had  certainly  a  gift  of  rhetoric,  and  he 


82  THE  BOMB 

tried  to  reason  as  well.  He  called  this  **  the  age 
of  machinery,"  and  declared  that  through 
machines  the  productive  power  of  the  indivi- 
dual had  been  increased  a  hundredfold  in  the 
last  century.  "Why,  then,  is  the  producer 
not  paid  a  hundred  times  as  much.?*'  he 
shouted.  "Eight  hours  of  work  now  produce 
as  much  wealth  as  hundreds  of  hours  a  cen- 
tury ago,  why  shouldn't  the  employer  be 
satisfied  with  eight  hours  a  day,  and  leave  the 
workman  the  possibility  of  a  human  exis- 
tence? He  would  be  satisfied  were  he  the 
employer  and  not  the  exploiter.  .  .  . 

"Think  of  the  injustice  of  it  all,"  he  cried. 
"We  men  are  gradually  winning  a  mastery 
over  nature.  The  newest  force,  electricity, 
is  also  the  cheapest  and  the  most  eflScient. 
First  comes  the  scientist  who  discovers  the 
law  or  the  new  power ;  then  the  inventor  who 
puts  it  to  use;  then  the  greedy  brute  who  by 
law  or  force  or  fraud  annexes  the  benefits  of 
it.  The  poor  here  in  Chicago  are  as  poor  as 
ever;  many  of  them  will  die  this  winter  of 
cold  and  destitution;  but  the  rich  grow  richer 
continually.  Who  ever  heard  a  century  ago 
of  a  man  making  a  million  of  dollars  in  his 
own  lifetime.  Now  we  have  our  Rockefellers 
and  others  with  fortunes  of  a  hundred  millions. 
Did  they  make  those  huge  sums.?"  he  asked. 
"Of  course  they  didn't,  they  stole  them,  and 


THE  BOMB  83 

they  are  only  able  to  steal  such  enormous 
amounts  because  the  brains  of  the  scientist 
and  the  inventor  have  made  labour  tenfold 
more  productive  than  it  was  before  we  com- 
pressed steam  to  our  service  and  harnessed  the 
lightning  to  our  use.  But  are  all  the  benefits 
of  man's  wisdom  and  labour  always  to  go  to 
the  greedy  few;  to  be  lost,  so  to  speak,  intakes 
and  cisterns,  and  never  to  spread  in  fertilizing 
showers  over  the  whole  land?  I  refuse  to 
believe  it.  I  have  another  vision  in  my  mind," 
and  he  proceeded  to  sketch  a  sort  of  working- 
man's  paradise.  .  .  . 

The  appeal  was  effective;  the  murmurs  in 
the  crowd  showed  that.  Several  times  Par- 
sons puzzled  me;  he  talked  of  Socialism  and 
Anarchy  as  if  they  were  one;  but  certainly  he 
talked  with  passion  and  enthusiasm.  All  at 
once  I  noticed  a  man  on  my  left;  he  had  come 
up  after  me.  He  was  dressed  like  a  workman, 
but  neatly.  I  noticed  him  because  he  turned 
aside  from  something  the  speaker  had  said 
with  a  certain  contempt  in  his  look.  I  re- 
marked quite  casually — 

"You  don't  seem  to  agree  with  Parsons." 

Suddenly  our  eyes  met;  it  was  as  if  I  had 
had  an  electric  shock,  the  gaze  was  so  piercing, 
so  extraordinary,  that  involuntarily  I  braced 
myself  to  meet  it. 

"A  little  florid,"  the  man  replied. 


84  THE  BOMB 

I  was  nettled  at  the  contempt,  but  spoke 
again,  mainly  in  order  to  see  the  eyes  fairly, 
and  find  out  the  secret  of  their  strange  power. 

"There  is  surely  a  good  deal  of  trut^  in 
what  he  says,  and  he  says  it  splendidly." 

Again  his  eyes  met  mine,  and  again  I  had 
the  same  shock. 

"Oh  yes!"  he  assented,  looking  out  over 
the  lake,  "it's  the  shallow  water  has  the  lace- 
foam  on  it,"  he  added,  and  turned  quietly 
away. 

I  could  not  help  looking  after  him  as  he 
went.  Were  his  eyes  grey  or  black  ?  I  could 
not  tell.  I  could  see  him  still,  he  was  only 
about  middle  height,  but  squarely  built,  and 
he  walked  with  a  lithe  speed  and  ease,  as  of 
great  strength.  I  was  never  so  impressed  in 
my  life  by  any  one;  yet  he  had  scarcely  said 
anything.  Though  I  did  not  know  it  then, 
I  had  spoken  for  the  first  time  to  Louis  Lingg, 
the  man  who  was  to  shape  my  life. 


u.  CHAPTER  III 

i  BOUT  this  time  I   began  to  realize  that 

-  the  struggle  between  the  employers 
a  '*!  he  employed  in  Chicago  was  becoming 
dangerously  bitter,  and  was  envenomed  by 
the  fact  that  nine  out  of  ten  native-born  Ameri- 
cans were  taking  sides  with  the  masters  a- 
gainst  the  workmen  on  the  ground  that  the 
workmen  were  foreigners  and  interlopers. 
The  agitation  for  an  eight-hours'  day  was 
looked  upon  as  a  foreign  innovation,  and  de- 
nounced on  every  hand. 

Acting  on  Elsie's  advice,  I  had  gone  to  the 
great  American  papers  in  Chicago  and  tried 
to  get  work.  When  asked  what  I  could  do, 
I  handed  the  editors  an  English  translation 
of  the  best  of  my  articles  in  *'Vorwaerts." 
After  many  disappointments,  I  had  a  talk 
with  the  editor  of  "The  Chicago  Tribune," 
who  accepted  my  paper  on  working  under- 
ground in  New  York  on  condition  that  I 
would  cut  out  all  that  '"socialist  poppycock." 

"It  won't  go  down  here,"  he  said,  smiling; 
"it's  Limburger  cheese  to  us,  see!  Good  in 
its  own  way,  I've  no  doubt;  but  a  Uttle  too 
strong.     You  catch  on,  eh?" 


86  THE  BOMB 

At  the  same  time  he  gave  me  a  cheque  for 
twenty-five  dollars  for  the  article.  I  could 
not  let  such  an  opportunity  slip.  I  told  him  I 
knew  German  even  better  than  English,  and 
should  like  to  act  as  his  reporter  in  the  labour 
troubles. 

"O.K.,"  he  replied;  "but  don't  go  tootin' 
about  for  the  foreigner.  We're  Americans 
every  time  and  stand  for  the  star-spangled 
banner:  understand?" 

I  said  I  would  confine  myself  to  the  facts, 
and  I  did  so  more  or  less  successfully  on  several 
minor  occasions.  At  last  something  happened 
which  seemed  to  me  at  the  time  significant 
and  which  later  I  saw  marked  a  new  departure. 
There  was  a  strike  on  the  East  Side.  It 
was  in  December  or  January,  bitter  winter 
weather,  fifteen  or  twenty  degrees  below  zero. 
Snow  was  falling  slowly,  the  afternoon  closing 
in.  The  operatives  in  some  machine  shops 
had  come  out,  and  were  holding  a  meeting  on 
a  vacant  lot  near  the  factory.  A  thousand 
workmen  or  so  attended,  and  perhaps  a  hun- 
dred women  and  boys.  The  speeches  were 
for  the  most  part  in  German,  and  were  dull 
to  a  degree.  The  main  complaint  was  that 
the  employers  were  cutting  down  wages,  and 
increasing  fines,  because  they  had  too  large 
a  stock,  and  wanted  to  diminish  expenses  in 
winter   while   trade   was   at   its   worst.     The 


THE  BOMB  87 

work,  too,  was  such  that  any  workman  could 
do  it,  and  so  the  masters  had  every  advantage. 

There  we  stood  in  the  bitter  wind  and 
driving  snowflakes,  while  these  poor  wretches 
talked  and  decided  to  picket  the  neighbour- 
hood to  prevent  new  men  taking  on  their  jobs 
in  ignorance  of  the  situation.  I  went  among 
the  crowd  studying  the  strikers.  Most  of  the 
faces  were  young,  strong,  intelligent;  hardly 
any  wastrels  among  them,  the  average  of 
looks  far  higher  than  one  would  see  in  Ham- 
burg or  Munich;  but  care  and  anxiety  were  to  ! 
be  read  on  nearly  every  countenance.  Many 
faces,  too,  seemed  bitter,  a  few  were  sullen, 
or  hard.  The  fight  for  life  was  evidently 
terrible  in  this  town,  where  the  workmen  were 
weak — disunited  through  differences  of  race 
and  speech.  ' 

The  gloomy  day  was  darkening  to  night; 
the  snow  was  falling  more  heavily.  I  had 
drawn  a  little  away  from  the  crowd,  and  was 
thinking  about  getting  home  to  write  up  my 
notes,  when  I  heard  the  tramp  of  feet,  and 
saw  a  strong  force  of  police,  perhaps  one 
hundred  in  all,  marching  down  the  street. 
At  once  I  was  at  my  keenest.  The  police 
drew  up  at  the  lot,  and  Captain  Bonfield,  a 
big,  powerful  fellow,  who  had  won  to  command 
through  sheer  strength  and  courage,  thrust 
the  crowd  asunder,  and,  with  a  dozen  of  his 


88  THE  BOMB 

men  pushed  his  way  to  the  centre.  "Come 
down,"  the  police  cried  to  the  speakers,  call- 
ing at  the  same  time  to  the  crowd  about 
them  to  disperse:  "break  up,  there!  break 
up!"  was  the  cry,  and  the  strikers  began  to 
obey  with  sullen  murmurs  of  discontent. 

At  first  it  looked  as  if  high-handed  author- 
ity would  triumph  once  more;  but  there  came 
a  fateful  pause,  and  at  once  the  police  seemed 
to  lose  their  tempers.  I  pressed  into  the 
crowd  to  see  what  was  going  on.  Bonfield 
was  talking  to  one  of  the  speakers,  a  man 
whom  I  afterwards  knew,  called  Fielden,  an 
Englishman,  a  middle-aged,  dark-bearded  man, 
the  essence  of  good-nature,  but  stolidly  de- 
termined.    He   kept   repeating   now — 

"We  are  not  interfering  with  anybody. 
Who  are  we  interfering  with  ?  We  are  harm- 
ing nobody." 

Bonfield   had   his   club  in  his   hand.     He 
suddenly   seemed   to   lose    self-control.     Per- 
haps he  was  pressed  against  by  the  crowd.     I 
;  can't  tell.     But  of  a  sudden  he  struck  Fielden 
\  in  the  stomach  with  his  club,  and  knocked  him 
i  backwards  off  the  cart,  which  was  serving  as 
a   sort   of   extemporized   platform.     At   once 
a  man  thrust  himself  forward  in  front  of  Bon- 
field,  shouting  some  gibberish  that  I  could 
hardly  distinguish,  and  using  wild  gestures. 
It  was  Fischer,  the  Communist  reporter.     He 


THE  BOMB  89 

was  evidently  beside  himself  with  angry  ex- 
citement, and  his  German-English  jargon 
was  wholly  unintelligible  to  the  police.  Bon- 
field  looked  at  him  for  a  minute,  and  thrust 
him  back  with  his  left  hand.  As  Fischer 
pressed  forward  again,  gesticulating,  Bonfield 
thrust  him  back  again,  and  then  clubbed  him 
savagely  on  the  head.  Fischer  fell  senseless, 
and  that  was,  as  it  were,  the  signal  for  the 
row  to  begin.  In  one  moment  the  police  were 
lost,  pulled  down,  and  trampled  under  foot 
by  the  surging  crowd  of  men.  Immediately 
I  turned  and  began  to  push  through  the  crowd 
to  get  out  in  order  to  see  what  would  take 
place.  The  police  on  the  outskirts  had  al- 
ready drawn  their  clubs,  and  were  using  them 
on  every  one.  The  crowd  began  to  ravel 
away  at  its  edges  before  the  fierce  attack.  I 
struggled  out  of  it  somehow,  and  got  to  the 
pavement,  and  from  there  I  saw  the  police 
bludgeoning  every  one  they  could.  Most  of 
the  crowd  were  already  running  away.  While 
trying  to  escape  men  and  women  were 
brutally  struck  down.  It  was  a  butchery. 
My  blood  was  boiling;  but  I  had  no  weapon, 
and  could  do  nothing.  I  was  standing  just 
at  the  corner  of  the  street  and  the  vacant  lot, 
when  a  policeman  near  me  ran  after  a  boy. 
The  boy  could  not  have  been  more  than  thir- 
teen or  fourteen  years  of  age.     He  got  almost 


90  THE  BOMB 

to  my  side,  and  then  as  the  policeman  caught 
up  to  him  and  lifted  his  club,  I  think  I  shouted 
in  horror.  But  some  one  passed  me  like  a 
flash,  and  before  the  policeman's  club  had 
fallen,  indeed,  while  he  was  in  the  very  act  of 
striking,  he  was  struck  himself,  under  the  jaw, 
and  with  such  speed  and  force  that  I  gasped 
with  amazement  at  the  way  he  went  down, 
his  club  whirling  in  the  air  a  dozen  feet  away. 
The  next  moment  his  assailant  turned  and 
strode  past  me  down  the  street.  It  was  the 
man  whose  gaze  had  made  such  an  impression 
on  me  a  short  time  before  at  Parson's  meeting 
on  the  Lake  shore. 

A  moment  later  I  called  after  him,  but,  in 
the  meantime,  several  of  the  strikers  had 
rushed  between  us,  and  when  I  followed  him 
he  had  disappeared. 

I  wrote  the  account  of  the  police  attack,  as 
I  have  told  it  here,  and  took  it  to  the  office  of 
the  "Tribune";  but  before  going  I  took  care 
to  get  together  some  facts  to  corroborate  my 
statements.  Thirty-five  strikers  had  been  ta- 
ken to  the  hospital,  all  of  them  severely  wound- 
ed, two  of  them  dangerously;  while  not  one 
policeman  was  injured  sufficiently  to  come 
under  the  doctor's  hands. 

When  the  editor  had  read  my  article,  he 
put  it  down  frowning.  "It  may  be  as  you 
say,  Schnaubelt,"  he  said;  "the  admittances 


THE  BOMB  91 

to  the  hospital  make  your  story  look  probable. 
But  you  are  up  against  America  in  this  matter, 
and  I  am  not  going  to  take  sides  against  my 
own  people.  'Yankee  Doodle'  is  our  tune 
every  time,  and  don't  you  forget  it!"  he  added 
assertively. 

"I  have  taken  no  side,"  I  explained;  **I 
am  telling  simply  what  I  saw." 

"That's  the  worst  of  it,"  he  admitted. 
*'D — n  it.  I  believe  it  is  the  truth;  but,  any- 
way, I  can't  and  won't  publish  it.  You 
foreigners  are  trying  to  make  an  eight-hour 
day,  and  we  are  not  going  to  have  it.  I  will 
write  a  little  'par'  myself,  just  saying  that 
Bonfield  was  needlessly  energetic." 

''Well,"  I  said,  "if  you  won't  take  this 
strike  stuff  of  mine,  perhaps  you  will  keep 
me  on  still  about  the  fires  and  anything  of 
that  sort." 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said.  "You  do  it  very  well. 
You  go  to  every  fire,  and  our  American  re- 
porters get  too  cunning.  They  write  up  ac- 
counts without  having  been  there.  Yes,  I'll 
take  the  fire  stuff  all  right;  but  you  keep  off 
this  strike  business.  It's  going  to  be  bad 
weather  for  some  of  those  Poles  and  Germans, 
I  can  see — mighty  bad  weather." 

The  editor  was  right;  it  was  bad  weather  for 
the  foreign  workmen  all  through  that  savage 
winter  and  spring,  for  the  editor  of  the  "Tri- 


92  THE  BOMB 

bune,"  like  all  the  other  American  editors,  put 
in  no  part  of  the  truth.  He  forgot  even  to  say 
in  his  leading  article  that  Bonfield  was  need- 
lessly energetic,  as  he  had  promised.  What 
he  did  say  was  that  the  thirty-five  foreigners 
in  the  hospital  would  perhaps  serve  as  a 
warning  to  the  rest  that  any  attack  on  the 
police  would  be  vigorously  repressed.  Hard 
weather,  indeed,  and  worse  to  come  for  the 
^  foreign  workmen! 

I  was  no  longer  employed  to  go  to  the 
strikes.  I  saw  them,  and  hundreds  of  Amer- 
ican eye-witnesses  are  still  living  who  can 
prove  that  the  police  went  on  from  bru- 
tality to  brutality.  Every  month  their  actions 
became  more  indefensible,  till  at  length  they 
did  not  even  summon  the  crowds  to  dis- 
perse, but  used  their  clubs  at  once,  indiscrim- 
inately upon  strikers  and  lookers-on  and 
casual  passers-by,  like  madmen. 

But  I  am  getting  ahead  of  my  story.  After 
that  talk  with  the  editor  of  the  "Tribune," 
I  went  to  see  Spies.  He  was  delighted  to 
have  my  description  of  the  police  attack  for 
his  paper;  introduced  me  to  Fielden,  the 
Englishman,  who  had  already  given  him  a 
rough  account  of  it;  and  who  told  us  that 
Fischer  was  lying  ill  at  home.  He  had  had 
a  terrible  blow,  it  appeared.  The  whole  side 
of  his  face  had  been  crushed  in;  he  was  suflFer- 


THE  BOMB  93 

ing  from  concussion  of  the  brain,  and  would 
not  be  able  to  get  about  again  for  months. 
The  dreadful  affair  seemed  to  have  excited 
Spies's  courage  and  strengthened  his  resolu- 
tion. "Shameful,  shameful,"  he  kept  on 
saying.  "For  the  first  time  in  America  order- 
ly meetings  on  vacant  lots  are  dispersed  by 
force.  Thoughts  are  met  with  police  blud- 
geons." He  was  almost  beside  himself  with 
excitement  and  anger. 

On  my  way  out  I  stopped  in  the  outer  oflSce 
to  say  a  word  or  two  to  the  cashier,  and  as  I 
went  into  the  outside  waiting-room  I  met 
Raben. 

"What!"  I  cried,  "you  here  in  Chicago?" 

He  told  me  he  had  been  in  Chicago  some 
time. 

"Come  out,"  I  went  on,  "and  let  me  give 
you  a  German  meal  like  the  one  you  gave  me 
in  New  York.  Do  you  remember  ?  There's 
a  lot  to  talk  about." 

"There  is,"  he  said.  "You  people  in  Chi- 
cago are  making  history.  I  have  been  sent 
by  'The  New  York  Herald'  to  write  up  these 
strikes  of  yours."  His  air  of  triumph  was 
amusing.  His  connection  with  the  well-known 
paper  increased   his   self-importance. 

As  we  went  out  together  I  noticed  with 
some  satisfaction  that  my  accent  in  Anaerican 
was  now  better  than  his.    I  spoke  like  an 


94  THE  BOMB 

American,  whereas  any  one  could  see  that  he 
was  a  German.  Elsie  had  done  me  a  lot  of 
good.  Besides,  my  reading  of  the  English 
writers  and  the  articles  I  had  already  written 
in  English  had  given  me  a  larger  vocabulary 
and  a  greater  control  of  English  than  he  could 
pretend  to. 

We  were  soon  seated  in  a  restaurant  at  a 
good  meal,  and  I  learned  to  my  astonishment 
that  Raben  had  been  ten  days  or  a  fortnight 
in  Chicago. 

**I  heard  of  you,"  he  said,  "and  expected 
to  run  across  you  any  day." 

**  But  have  you  been  about  ?"  I  asked.  "  It  is 
curious  I  have  not  seen  you."  The  fact,  of 
course,  being  that  I  had  been  out  with  Elsie 
nearly  every  evening,  and  so  had  not  been  in 
the  way  of  meeting  many  Germans. 

Half  in  self-defence,  I  added,  **  I  have  been 
in  the  *Arbeiter  Zeitung'  twice  in  the  last 
week." 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "that  'Arbeiter  Zeitung'  is 
nothing  important.  The  revolutionary  force 
in  Chicago  is  the  *Lehr  and  Wehr  Verein.'" 

I  repeated  the  words,  " 'Revolutionary  force 
.  .  .  *Lehr  and  Wehr  Verein' — I  have  never 
heard  of  it." 

"You  come  with  me  to-night,"  said  Raben, 
with  the  intense  satisfaction  of  a  Columbus, 
"and  I'll  show  it  to  you.     Anarchists,   my 


THE  BOMB  95 

boy;  men  who'll  do  something;  not  your  meek 
Socialists  who  will  talk  and  let  themselves 
be  clubbed  to  death  without  resisting."  Ra- 
ben,  I  had  noticed  already,  lived  to  astonish 
people.  His  excessive  vanity  had  dramatic 
ambitions;  he  wanted  to  be  a  Cassandra  and 
Jeremiah  rolled  into  one. 

"Good  God!"  I  cried,  "are  there  really 
Anarchists  in  Chicago?"  The  mere  word 
seemed  terrible  to  me. 

Raben  gloated  over  my  amazement  and  awe. 
"You  come  with  me,"  he  said,  "and  I  will 
show  you  Chicago.  Though  I  have  only  been 
here  a  fortnight,  I  know  more  of  it  than  you 
who  have  been  here  for  months.  I  don't  let 
the  grass  grow  under  my  feet,"  and  he  pursed 
his  lips  in  perfect  self-satisfaction. 

After  .the  meal  we  set  off  for  the  Anarchist 
club,  and  he  took  me  out  to  the  East  Side,  to 
the  outskirts  of  the  town,  in  the  centre  of  the 
foreign,  cheapest  quarter.  There  we  went 
into  a  German  saloon,  and  he  introduced  me 
to  Herr  Michael  Schwab,  who  was  an  assistant 
editor  on  the  "Arbeiter  Zeitung,"  and  whom 
I  had  seen  with  Spies,  a  bespectacled  German 
professor,  thin,  angular,  sallow,  with  black 
hair  and  long,  black,  unkempt  beard.  Raben 
told  Schwab  in  German  who  I  was  and  what 
my  sympathies  were,  and  Schwab  said  yes, 
he  would  take  us  upstairs.     He  led  the  way 


96  THE  BOMB 

through  the  back  of  the  saloon  and  up  a  nar- 
row staircase  into  a  bare,  empty  room,  where 
there  were  perhaps  thirty  men  and  three  or 
four  women.  There  was  a  long  table  down 
the  centre  of  the  room,  round  which  the  au- 
dience sat,  and  a  small  plain  deal  table  at  the 
end  of  the  room  for  the  speakers.  Our  ap- 
pearance caused  some  stir;  every  one  looked 
at  us.  Apparently  the  meeting  had  not  yet 
begun.  As  soon  as  I  entered  the  room  I  was 
struck  again  by  seeing  the  man  who  had 
knocked  the  policeman  down,  and  whom  I 
was  so  curious  to  know.  As  I  was  about  to 
ask  Raben  to  get  Schwab  to  introduce  me, 
Raben  turned  to  me  and  said — 

"Oh,  there  she  is.  I  must  introduce  you 
to  the  prettiest  Anarchist  in  the  world,"  and 
he  pulled  me  in  front  of  a  tall,  handsome  bru- 
nette, who  had  begun  to  talk  to  Schwab. 
"Allow  me,"  he  said  in  American,  "Miss 
Ida  Miller,  to  present  to  you  a  friend  of  mine, 
Mr.   Rudolph   Schnaubelt." 

She  smiled  and  held  out  her  hand.  Raben 
told  her  how  he  had  persuaded  me  to  come  to 
the  meeting,  a  real  Anarchist  meeting,  though 
I  didn't  believe  there  was  an  Anarchist  in 
Chicago.  "  He's  a  South  German,  you  know," 
he  added  almost  contemptuously.  Some- 
thing in  Miss  Miller's  expression  attracted 
me   greatly,    and    almost   before   I    knew    it 


THE  BOMB  97 

we  were  talking  sympathetically.  Her  eyes 
were  fine,  and  she  interested  me,  appealed  to 
me,  indeed,  as  a  child  might  appeal.  Sud- 
denly I  remembered. 

"There  is  one  man  here  whom  I  must  know. 
Miss  Miller.     I  wonder  if  you  know  him?" 

"What's  he  like.?"  she  asked. 

I  described  his  eyes,  the  impression  he  had 
made  on  me  at  the  first  meeting,  and  then  told 
of  his  extraordinary  defence  of  the  boy,  the 
speed  and  power  of  his  attack,  and  the  cool 
way  he  turned  and  disappeared  down  the 
street. 

"That  must  be  Louis,"  cried  Ida,  "Louis 
Lingg.  Just  think  of  it!  he  never  said  one 
word  to  me  about  it,  not  one  word." 

I  repeated  the  words  after  her,  "Louis 
Lingg.     Is  he  French,  then.?" 

"Oh  no,"  she  said:  "he  is  a  German  from 
Mannheim.  That's  him  over  there  at  the 
end  of  the  table.  He  is  the  founder  of  this 
society — a  great  man,"  she  went  on,  as  if  to 
herself. 

"Of  course  you  think  him  great,"  said  Ra- 
ben;  "that  is  only  natural." 

Miss  Miller  turned  and  looked  at  him. 

"Yes,"  she  repeated,  "it  is  only  natural. 
I  am  glad  of  that.  Those  who  know  him  best, 
think  most  of  him." 

"I'd  like  to  know  Lingg,"  I  said. 


98  THE  BOMB 

"He'll  be  glad  to  know  you,"  she  replied. 
As  we  turned  aside  she  went  on,  in  a  low  voice, 
"He  is  always  glad  to  know  any  one  who 
wants  to  learn  or  help,"  and  the  next  moment 
she  had  called  him,  "Louis!"  and  had  in- 
troduced me  to  him.  His  eyes  met  me  now 
fairly;  but  I  had  no  shock  from  them.  They 
were  dark  grey,  with  black  pupils  and  lashes; 
in  expression  curiously  steady  and  searching; 
but  not  lambent- wonderful,  as  I  had  thought 
them  at  first.  Yet  I  was  to  see  the  unearthly 
power  in  them  often  enough  in  the  future. 
While  I  was  still  looking  at  Lingg,  trying  to 
fix  his  features  in  my  mind,  trying  to  under- 
stand wherein  lay  the  abnormal  and  extra- 
ordinary in  his  personality.  Miss  Miller  began 
reproaching  him  for  not  having  told  her  what 
he  had  done. 

"I  did  nothing,"  he  said,  very  quietly  and 
slowly. 

"Yes,  you  did,"  she  cried  enthusiastically; 
"you  knocked  down  the  policeman  and  saved 
the  boy,  and  then  walked  away  as  if  nothing 
had  happened.  I  can  see  you  doing  it.  Mr. 
Schnaubelt  has  been  telling  us  all  about  it. 
But  why  didn't  you  tell  me?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  said  simply, 
"Perhaps  we  had  better  get  on  with  the 
meeting." 

At  this  moment  there  was  an  interruption. 


THE  BOMB  99 

Schwab    came    round    making    a    collection, 
'Tor  Mrs.  Schelling,"  he  said. 

*' Who  ?     What  for  r  I  asked. 

Lingg  seemed  glad  of  the  interruption. 
He  answered  my  questions  courteously. 

"A  case  at  our  last  meeting,  a  case  of  lead 
poisoning.  Mrs.  Schelhng  is  a  widow  with 
one  rickety  child.  She's  finished,  I'm  afraid; 
she  can't  last  long." 

'* Really!"  I  exclaimed.  "Is  lead  poison- 
ing frequent  here  ?'' 

"Very  frequent,"  he  said,  "among  house  ■ 
painters.  You  must  have  heard  of  'wrist-  | 
drop' — paralysis  of  the  nerves  of  the  wrist?'*  1 

"No,"  I  said;  "but  are  women  employed 
as  painters .?"  \ 

"Not  as  painters,  but  in  manufactories  of 
white  lead  and  in  type  foundries,"  said  Lingg. 
"The  worst  of  it  is  that  women  are  much 
more  liable  to  plumbism,  and  suffer  much 
more  than  men.  It  kills  them  sometimes  in  a 
few  weeks." 

"Good  God!"  I  exclaimed,  "how  awful!" 

"Lead  poisoning  has  one  good  result,"  he 
went  on  bitterly;  "married  couples  seldom 
bear  children;  miscarriages  are  frequent,  and 
the  few  children  there  are  usually  die  of  con- 
vulsions in  babyhood,  or  as  idiots  a  little  later." 

"Shocking!"  I  cried.  "Why  isn't  a  sub- 
stitute found  for  white  lead.^" 


100  THE  BOMB 

"There  is  a  substitute,"  he  answered, 
"zinc  white.  The  French  Chamber  wants  to 
prohibit  the  use  of  white  lead  altogether,  and 
substitute  zinc  white;  but  the  Senate  won't. 
Characteristic,  isn't  it.^  Of  course,  the  dem- 
ocratic American  Government  pays  no  at- 
tention to  such  matters;  the  health  of  working- 
men  doesn't  concern  it." 

"Is  the  pain  great?"  I  asked. 

"  Horrible,  sometimes.  I  have  know  n  young 
girls  blinded,  others  paralysed,  others  go  mad 
and  die."  He  broke  off.  "We  are  always 
glad  to  have  a  little  money  in  hand  for  real 
need;  but  you  must  not  feel  compelled  to 
subscribe — the  giving  is  voluntary,"  and  say- 
ing this  he  led  the  way  to  the  little  table  at 
the  top  of  the  room.     Raben  followed  him. 

Everything  Lingg  said  impressed  me.  He 
brought  me  into  a  new  atmosphere,  a  new  life. 

Still  trying  to  find  a  reason  for  my  admira- 
tion of  him,  I  took  a  seat  beside  Miss  Miller 
at  the  long  table.  There  was  a  little  stir, 
and  then  a  man  got  up  and  gave  in  English 
a  very  good  description  of  the  fight  between 
the  police  and  the  strikers.  I  was  astonished 
at  the  restraint  of  his  speech,  and  the  unim- 
passioned,  detached  w^ay  in  which  he  described 
what  had  taken  place.  I  felt  Lingg's  influence 
on  him.  When  he  sat  down  there  was  a  little 
murmur  of  applause. 


THE  fiO^Pi;  ,     .:wjl 

After  him  Louis  Lingg  got  up,  and  said  he 
was  sure  the  meeting  was  grateful  to  Mr. 
Koch  for  his  account;  the  meeting  would  now 
listen  with  pleasure  to  Professor  Schwab. 

The  bilious  doctrinaire  Professor  made 
what  seemed  to  me  a  rambling,  ineffective 
speech.  He  knew  political  economy  from 
one  end  to  the  other,  as  only  a  German  can 
know  a  subject;  knew  the  English  school  and 
the  American  school,  and  the  French  and 
German  schools,  all  of  them,  with  encyclo- 
paedic exactness;  but  his  own  ideas  seemed  to 
have  come  from  Lasalle  and  Marx,  with  a 
tincture  of  Herbert  Spencer.  One  thing  he 
was  quite  clear  about,  and  that  was  that  in- 
dividualism had  been  pushed  too  far,  es- 
pecially in  America  and  England.  "There 
is  no  pressure  from  the  outside,"  he  said, 
"on  these  countries,  and  so  the  atoms  that 
constitute  the  social  organism  tend  to  fall 
apart.  Here  and  in  England  we  have  in- 
dividualism run  mad."  And  then  he  quoted 
Goethe  with  unction — 

**Im  Ganzen,  Guten,  Schoenen, 
Resolut  zu  leben.'* 

His  assumption  of  authority,  his  great  read- 
ing, something  flabby  in  the  man,  annoyed 
me.  I  did  not  want  a  sea  of  words  to  wash 
away  my  memory  of  the  terrible  things  I  had 
seen;  the  tempest  of  pity  and  anger  which 


10? : ;/ :  v: .     ^  1BE  BOMB 

had  carried  me  away  that  afternoon.  Some- 
thing of  this  I  said  to  Ida  Miller,  and  she  im- 
mediately said,  **Go  up  and  speak;  say  so. 
Truth  will  do  us  all  good." 

So  I  stood  up  and  went  to  the  table.  I 
asked  Lingg  might  I  speak,  and  then  sat  down 
waiting.  He  immediately  got  up,  and  said 
formally  the  meeting  would  have  pleasure  in 
listening  to  Mr.  Schnaubelt.  I  began  by 
saying  it  seemed  to  me  wrong  to  say  that 
America  suffered  from  too  much  individual 
freedom  when  we  were  being  clubbed  to  death 
for  speaking  our  minds  in  an  orderly  fashion. 
Americans  cherished  the  right  of  free  speech, 
but  denied  it  to  foreigners,  though  we  were 
Americans,  too,  with  just  as  good  title  to  the 
name  as  the  native-born  who  had  only  pre- 
ceded us  into  the  country  by  a  generation  or 
two. 

"I  don't  know,"  I  went  on,  "whether  equal- 
ity is  possible  or  not.  I  came  to  this  Lehr 
Verein,  or  teaching  club,  in  order  to  find  out 
whether  any  one  can  tell  me  anything  new 
about  the  possibility  of  equality.  I  can  see 
no  equality  in  nature;  no  equality  among 
men  in  gifts  and  powers;  how  can  there  be 
equality  in  possessions.^  But  there  may  be 
fair  play  and  equal  rights,  it  seems  to  me," 
and  I  bowed  and  went  back  and  took  my 
place  again  by  Ida. 


THE  BOMB  103 

"Splendid!  splendid!"  she  said;  **that  will 
draw  Louis." 

Lingg  got  up  at  once,  and  asked  whether 
there  was  any  one  else  who  wished  to  speak, 
and  there  came  a  general  murmur,  "Lingg, 
Lingg."  He  bowed  to  the  call,  and  then  said 
quietly,  in  the  tone  of  familiar  conversation — 

"The  last  speaker  doubted  the  possibility 
of  equality.  Complete  equality  is  of  course 
unthinkable;  but  ever  since  the  French  Re- 
volution there  has  been  an  approach  towards 
equality,  an  endeavour  after  equality.  Van- 
ity is  as  strong  a  passion  in  man  as  greed," 
he  said,  evidently  thinking  aloud.  "Before 
the  French  Revolution  it  was  considered 
nothing  out  of  the  way  for  a  nobleman  to 
spend  a  hundred  thousand  or  two  hundred 
thousand  livres  a  year  on  his  dress.  I  think 
the  professor  will  tell  you  that  there  were 
noblemen  at  the  French  Court  whose  mere 
clothes  represented  the  yearly  earnings  of 
hundreds  of  workmen. 

"The  French  Revolution  did  away  with 
all  that.  It  brought  in  a  dress  for  men  more 
suited  to  an  industrial  civilization.  We  are  no 
longer  dressed  as  soldiers  or  dandies,  but  as 
workmen,  and  the  difference  between  one 
man's  dress  and  another's  is  a  few  dollars,  or 
a  few  score  of  dollars  a  year.  The  man  now 
who  would  wear  a  lace  shirt  or  diamonds  in 


104  THE  BOMB 

his  shoes  that  cost  him  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  would  be  regarded  as  a  madman; 
these  extravagances  have  become  impossible. 
Why  should  there  not  be  another  revolution, 
and  a  similar  approach  towards  equality  in 
payment  for  services?  I  look  forward,  not 
to  equality,  which  does  not  seem  to  me  either 
possible  or  desirable;  but  to  a  great  move- 
ment towards  equality  in  the  pay  of  individual 
work." 

At  this  moment  a  note  was  passed  to  him. 
He  asked  the  permission  of  the  ladies  and 
gentlemen  present  to  read  it.  He  was  curiously 
courteous,  this  man,  always.  He  read  the  note, 
and  then  went  on  in  the  same  slow,  quiet  tone — 

"I  said,"  he  began,  "all  I  wanted  to  say; 
but  I  have  a  request  here  from  one  of  our 
Society  to  speak  on  the  police  attack  to-day." 
He  suddenly  moved  forward  to  the  end  of  the 
table,  and  as  he  looked  down  it  a  thrill  went 
through  all  of  us  who  caught  his  eye.  Then 
he  looked  down  again. 

"I  do  not  know  what  to  say.  One  hopes 
that  such  an  outrage  will  not  be  repeated.  I 
will  say  no  more  to-night,  though" — and  his 
words  dropped  slowly  from  his  lips  like  bul- 
lets— "though  our  Society  is  for  defence  as 
well  as  education."  There  was  a  menace 
in  his  voice  I  could  hardly  account  for  or  ex- 
plain.    He  looked  up  sombre,  and  the  words 


THE  BOMB  106 

seemed    to    repeat    themselves   in    our   awe- 
stricken  ears. 

"One  can't  meet  bludgeons  with  words," \ 
he  went  on,  "nor  blows  by  turning  the  other 
cheek.  Violence  must  be  met  with  violence. 
Americans  should  surely  know  that  action 
and  reaction  are  equal  and  opposite;  oppres- 
sion and  revolt  equal  and  opposite  also." 

He  suddenly  stopped,  bowed  to  us,  and  the 
meeting  broke  up  into  talk — quick  chatter 
about  the  table,  in  an  endeavour,  it  seemed  to 
me,  to  get  rid  of  the  effect  of  Lingg's  speech 
upon  us  and  his  astonishing  personality.  For  the 
first  time  in  life  I  had  come  into  the  presence 
of  a  man  who  was  wiser  than  I  had  imagined 
possible,  who  brought  new  thoughts  into  life 
at  every  moment,  and  whose  whole  being 
was  so  masterful  and  intense  that  one  expected 
greater  things  from  him  than  from  other 
men. 

I  turned  enthusiastically  to  Miss  Miller. 

"Oh,  you  are  right,"  I  said;  "he  is  a  great 
man,  Louis  Lingg,  a  great  man.  I  want  to 
know  him  well." 

"I  am  glad,"  she  said  simply;  but  her  face 
lighted  up  at  my  praise.  "Nothing  easier. 
If  he  has  nothing  to  do  this  evening  you  could 
come  home  with  us." 

"Do  you  live  with  him?"  I  asked,  in  my 
amazement    utterly    unconscious    of    what   I 


106  THE  BOMB 

was  sapng.  Without  any  false  sentiment 
she  answered  me — 

"Oh  yes;  we  do  not  believe  in  marriage. 
Louis  thinks  moral  laws  are  simply  laws  of 
health;  he  regards  marriage  as  a  silly  institu- 
tion, without  meaning  for  men  and  women 
who  wish  to  deal  honestly  with  each  other." 

Evidently  this  evening  I  was  to  go  through 
shock  upon  shock.  I  stared  at  her,  scarcely 
able  to  believe  my  ears. 

"I  see  you  are  astonished,"  she  said,  laugh- 
ing; "but  we  are  Anarchists  and  rebels.  You 
must  get  accustomed  to  us." 

"Anarchists!"  I  repeated,  genuinely  shock- 
ed; "really?" 

How  the  meeting  broke  up  I  do  not  know; 
but  it  did  break  up  at  last.  We  had  a  glass 
or  two  of  beer  all  round,  for  the  good  of  the 
house,  and  then  we  dispersed;  but  not  before 
Lingg  had  given  me  his  address,  and  told  me 
he  would  be  glad  to  see  me  on  the  morrow, 
or  whenever  I  liked  to  call. 

"I  have  read  some  of  your  work,"  he  said, 
"and  I  like  it.     There's  sincerity  in  it." 

I  got  crimson  in  spite  of  myself;  no  com- 
pliment ever  pleased  me  so  much.  I  went  ofif 
with  Raben,  and  wanted  to  know  all  about 
Lingg;  began,  indeed,  to  talk  about  him  en- 
thusiastically; but  found  Raben  not  at  all 
enthusiastic,    and    soon    discovered    that    he 


THE  BOMB  107 

knew  little  or  nothing  about  Lingg,  was  much 
more  interested  in  Miss  Miller,  and  looked 
upon  Lingg's  liaison  with  her  as  a  very  bad  Hlic\ 
thing  for  the  girl.  That  night  I  felt  as  if  ufuio^ 
Raben  dirtied  everything  he  touched.  I  bade 
him  ''good  night"  as  soon  as  possible,  and 
hurried  home  to  get  my  own  thoughts  clear, 
and  to  digest  the  new  ones  which  Lingg  had 
put  into  my  head,  and,  above  all,  the  new 
spirit  that  he  seemed  to  have  breathed  into 
my  being.  Could  one  man  stand  against  the 
whole  of  society,  and  defy  it  ?    How ? 


CHAPTER  IV 

THERE  now  began  for  me  a  period  of 
forced  growth;  growth  of  mind  through 
intercourse  \nth  Lingg;  growth  of  emo- 
tions and  knowledge  of  life,  knowledge 
of  myself  and  of  women,  through  intimacy 
with  Elsie  Lehman.  For  months  and  months 
I  met  Lingg  continually,  often  spent  the 
whole  day  with  him;  yet  in  all  that  time  I 
never  met  him  once  without  learning  some- 
thing new  from  him.  Again  and  again  I 
went  to  him,  feeling  sure  that  he  could  not 
have  anything  new  to  say,  but  at  some  time  or 
other  in  the  conversation  a  new  subject  would 
be  touched  on,  and  immediately  new  ideas, 
a  new  view,  came  from  him.  At  the  time,  I 
remember  well,  this  astounded  me,  for  I  my- 
self loved  ideas,  any  and  every  bold  general- 
ization, which  like  a  golden  thread  would 
string  together  a  hundred  pearls  of  fact.  I 
was  fairly  well  equipped,  too,  in  the  wisdom 
of  the  schools,  and  in  books,  before  I  met 
Lingg.  I  had  read  a  good  deal  of  Greek  and 
Latin,  and  the  best  authors  in  French,  German 
and  English.  The  amazing  part  of  it  to  me 
at  first  was  that  Lingg  had  read  very  little. 


THE  BOMB  109 

Again  and  again  when  talking  on  social  ques- 
tions I  had  to  say,  "Oh,  that's  Heine's  thought, 
or  "Goethe's."  His  eyebrows  went  up;  they 
were  his  thoughts,  and  that  was  enough  for 
him.  He  seemed  to  think  where  other  think- 
ers left  off,  and  if  I  were  to  attempt  to  set 
down  here  in  cold  sequence  all  the  fruitful 
ideas  and  brilliant  guesses  which  came  from 
him  naturally  in  the  heat  of  conversation,  or 
sprang  like  sparks  from  the  cut  and  thrust  of 
dialectic,  I  should  be  painting  a  prig,  or  a 
thinking  machine,  and  Louis  Lingg  was 
neither  of  these;  but  a  warm-hearted  friend 
and  passionate  lover.  There  were  in  him 
all  sorts  of  contradictions  and  anomalies,  as 
there  are  in  all  of  us;  but  he  seemed  to  touch 
the  extremes  of  life  with  a  wider  reach  than 
other  men.  He  was  a  peculiar  nature;  usually 
cool,  calculating,  self-concentrated,  judging 
men  and  things  absolutely  according  to  their 
value,  as  a  realist;  the  next  moment  all  flame 
and  emotion,  with  an  absolute  genius  for 
self-sacrifice. 

To  show  the  insight  in  him,  the  power  and 
clearness  of  his  intellect,  I  must  give  another 
of  his  speeches  at  the  Lehr  Verein.  When  I 
heard  it,  it  seemed  to  me  so  wise,  fair,  and 
moderate  as  to  be  convincing. 

Lingg  began  by  saying  that  the  chief  evils 
of  our  society  showed  themselves  first  towards 


110  THE  BOMB 

the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  "This 
period,"  he  went  on,  "was  made  memorable 
by  the  invention  of  the  spinning  jenny  and 
by  the  use  of  steam  as  a  force,  and  by  the 
publication  of  *The  Wealth  of  Nations,'  in 
which  individualism  was  first  preached  as  a 
creed.  Just  at  the  time  when  man  by  using 
natural  laws  began  to  multiply  tenfold  the 
productivity  of  his  labour,  it  was  proposed  to 
leave  everything  to  the  grab-as-grab-can  prin- 
ciple of  individual  greed.  Now,  consider  the 
consequences  of  this  mistake  in  a  concrete 
form;  the  roads  of  the  country  had  always 
been  regarded  as  national  property;  they 
w^ere  made  as  cheaply  as  possible  at  the  public 
cost,  and  maintained  by  the  local  authorities; 
but  the  railroads  were  made  and  owned  and 
maintained  by  individuals  or  rather  by  groups 
of  individuals.  The  land,  too,  in  every  coun- 
try, had  been  leased  to  the  individual  by  the 
State  on  some  sort  of  payment,  and  from  one- 
third  to  one-half  of  it  reserved  as  common 
land;  now  the  land  was  given  in  freehold  to 
the  individual.  At  once  the  social  organism 
began  to  suffer.  It  grew  rich  quickly;  but  the 
poor  grew  poorer;  the  workhouses  filled;  the 
modern  contrast  of  extravagant  riches  and 
extreme  destitution  came  into  being.  .  .  . 

"Socialism,  or  Communism,  is  now  being 
preached  as  a  remedy  for  all  this;  let  us  take 


THE  BOMB  111 

everything  from  the  individual,  Marx  cries, 
and  all  will  be  well.  But  that's  surely  an 
experiment.  Civilization,  as  we  understand 
it,  has  been  founded  on  individualism;  can- 
not the  individual  be  restrained  without  sub- 
verting the  social  structure?  I  agree  with 
Professor  Schwab,  we  are  suffering  from  too 
much  individualism;  the  problem  is  how  to 
limit  individualism,  how  far  socialism  should 
come  into  life  ?  The  answer,  to  my  mind,  is 
clear;  the  individual  should  be  left  with  all 
those  departments  of  industry  which  he  is 
able  to  control:  his  activity  should  not  be 
limited  in  any  honest  direction;  but  all  those 
departments  of  labour  which  he  is  not  able  to 
control,  in  which  he  has  given  up  his  free- 
dom in  order  to  join  with  other  men  in  Joint 
Stock  Companies,  and  so  increase  his  power 
to  plunder  the  community — all  such  indus- 
tries should  be  taken  over  by  the  State,  or  by 
the  Municipality,  beginning,  of  course,  with 
those  which  are  most  necessary  to  the  welfare 
of  the  body  politic. 

"I  take  it,  too,  that  the  land  of  a  country 
should  belong  to  the  people  of  the  country, 
and  should  be  rented  out  to  cultivators  on 
easy  terms,  for  country  life  produces  the 
strongest  and  most  healthful  citizens.  All 
the  railways  and  means  of  communication 
should  be  nationalized;  the  water  companies. 


U^^' 


112  THE  BOMB 

the  gas  and  electric  lighting  companies, 
banks  and  insurance  companies,  and  so  on. 
If  you  consider  the  matter,  you  will  find  that 
it  is  just  in  and  through  these  great  industries, 
directed  by  Joint  Stock  Companies  that  all 
the  evils  of  our  civilization  have  shown  them- 
selves. These  are  the  hot-houses  of  specula- 
tion and  theft  where  the  lucky  gambler,  or 
daring  thief,  to  give  him  his  proper  name,  has 
won  millions  and  demoralized  the  public 
conscience. 

"If  you  had  here  in  America,  beside  the 
landed  population,  an  industrial  army  manag- 
ing the  railways  and  canals,  the  lighting  and 
water  companies,  with  fair  wages  and  absolute 
security  of  employment  pending  good  be- 
haviour, you  would  have  lifted  the  whole 
scale  of  wages  of  the  day  labourer,  for  if  the 
individual  employer  who  could  not  give  such 
security  did  not  offer  higher  wages  than  the 
state  he  would  not  get  the  best  men." 

As  he  spoke  light  dawned  on  me;  this  was 
the  truth  if  ever  it  was  heard  from  human 
lips;  the  exact  truth  struck  in  the  centre. 
The  individual  should  be  master  of  all  those 
industries  which  he  could  control  unaided, 
and  no  more.  Joint  Stock  Companies'  ma- 
nagement was  worse  even  than  State  manage- 
ment; every  one  knew  it  was  more  ineflScient 
and  more  corrupt.     All  my  reading,  all  my 


THE  BOMB  113 

experience,  leaped  to  instant  recognition  of 
Lingg's  insight,  to  instant  agreement  with 
him.     What  a  man  he  was! 

Of  course  this  statement  as  it  stands  com- 
pressed here  gives  a  very  imperfect  idea  of 
Lingg's  genius;  it  is  all  set  down  boldly,  with- 
out the  vivid,  living  flashes  of  humour  which 
made  his  talk  inimitable;  but  still,  the  truth 
is  there,  the  wine  of  thought,  though  gone  a 
little  flat.  That  evening  was  made  doubly 
memorable  to  me  by  another  experience. 

A  workman  was  introduced  suffering  from 
"phossy  jaw";  he  had  worked  as  a  "dipper," 
it  appeared,  at  a  match  manufactory  on  the 
East  Side.  The  "composition"  into  which 
the  heads  of  the  matches  are  dipped  is  warm 
and  moist,  and  contains  about  five  per  cent 
of  white  phosphorus.  The  fumes  of  the 
phosphorus  can  be  seen  rising  above  the 
composition.  Of  course  fans  are  used;  but 
fans  are  not  sufficient  to  protect  a  workman 
with  bad  teeth.  This  man  had  good  teeth 
at  the  beginning;  but  at  length  a  tooth  de- 
cayed in  his  lower  jaw,  and  at  once  phosphorus 
necrosis  set  in.  He  was  strangely  apathetic; 
so  powerful  a  motive  is  vanity  that  it  almost 
seemed  as  if  he  were  proud  of  the  extraordinary 
extent  to  which  his  jaw  was  decayed. 

"I'm  pretty  bad,"  he  said;  "the  doctor 
3ays  he  has  never  seen  a  worse  case.     Look 


114  THE  BOMB 

here,"  and  he  put  his  fingers  in  his  mouth, 
and  broke  off  a  long  sliver  of  jaw-bone.  "Bad, 
ain't  it?  .  .  .  I've  been  twelve  weeks  out  of 
work;  I'm  rotten,"  he  confided  to  us,  "that's 
what  I  am — rotten.  I  stepped  down  off  the 
sidewalk  into  the  street  and — crack !  my  thigh 
bone  snapped  in  two  —  rotten!  I  wouldn't 
care  if  it  weren't  for  the  missus  and 
the  kids.  It  don't  hurt,  and  there's  lots 
worse  off;  but  twelve  weeks  is  a  bit  long.  I 
guess  they  could  get  a  substitute  for  that 
phosphorus  if  they  wanted  to."  * 

No  rage  over  his  ruined  life,  no  resentment. 
I  was  appalled.  We  collected  nearly  a  hun- 
dred dollars  for  him  in  a  full  meeting,  and 
he  seemed  grateful;  though  confident  that 
nothing  could  cure  him. 

A  few  days  after  this  meeting  at  the  Lehr 
and  Wehr  Verein,  I  called  on  Lingg  in  his 
rooms,  and  got  to  know  him  pretty  well.  He 
had  a  bedroom  and  sitting-room  on  the  second 
floor  in  a  comparatively  quiet  street  on  the 
East  Side;  the  sitting-room  was  large  and  bare; 
the  corner  near  the  window,  which  was  hidden 
by    the    opening   door,    was   furnished    with 

[*The  workman  was  right.  The  Belgian  Government  has  since 
offered  a  prize  for  a  hanmess  substitute,  and  one  was  found  aknost 
at  once,  in  the  sesquisulphide  of  phosphorus,  which  is  now  generally 
used.  Think  of  the  hundreds  of  deaths,  of  the  human  misery  that 
might  have  been  avoided  if  some  government  had  seen  this  obvious 
duty  forty  or  fifty  years  sooner:  but  of  course  no  government  cared 
to  interfere  with  the  blessed  principle  of  laiasez  faire,  which  might 
be  translated,  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"— Note  of  Editor.] 


THE  BOMB  115 

broad  pine  shelves,  and  the  many  bottles  gave 
it  the  look  of  a  laboratory,  which,  indeed,  it 
was.  Lingg  was  not  in  when  I  called;  but 
Ida  was,  and  we  were  soon  talking  about  him. 
I  told  her  how  his  words  had  stuck  in  my  head, 
and  how  much  he  had  impressed  me  and 
interested  me. 

"I'm  glad,"  she  said;  "he  needs  a  friend." 

"I  should  be  proud  to  be  his  friend,"  I 
assured  her  warmly,  "he's  a  great  man;  he 
attracts   me  immensely." 

"How  true  that  is,"  she  said;  "I  always 
think  great  souls  draw  us  more  strongly  than 
small  ones,  don't  you .?" 

I  agreed  with  her;  I  was  struck  by  the 
phrase;  it  seemed  to  me  like  a  thought  of 
Lingg's. 

I  think  it  was  on  this  first  visit,  or  soon  after, 
that  she  showed  me  a  side  of  her  character 
which  I  should  never  have  divined.  She  was 
of  equable  temper,  and  not  lightly  to  be  thrown 
off  her  balance;  yet  she  kept  breaking  off  the 
conversation  to  listen  for  Lingg's  step,  in  a 
fever  of  suspense.  When  I  rallied  her  about 
this  unwonted  excitement  I  found  there  was 
no  special  reason  for  it;  she  admitted  simply 
that  she  was  anxious.  "If  you  knew  him  as 
well  as  I  do,  you'd  be  anxious  too."  And 
again  she  held  her  breath  and  listened. 

She  was  always  willing  to  talk  about  Lingg 


116  THE  BOMB 

with  me,  for  she  recognized,  I  think,  at  the 
very  beginning  with  a  loving  woman's  intui- 
tion that  I,  too,  would  become  devoted  to 
him,  and  so  bit  by  bit  I  gathered  from  her 
nearly  all  Lingg's  history.  When  a  mere 
boy  of  fifteen,  in  the  first  year,  indeed,  of  his 
apprenticeship  to  a  carpenter  at  Mannheim, 
his  widowed  mother  lost  all  her  little  income 
through  a  death.  The  boy,  it  appears,  had 
chosen  his  trade  himself  and  would  not  give 
it  up;  he  simply  redoubled  his  efforts  and 
spent  all  his  spare  time  at  work  in  order  to 
keep  his  mother  and  himself.  He  worked  so 
hard  that  the  master-carpenter  proposed  to 
give  him  a  small  weekly  wage,  which  he  in- 
creased again  and  again  of  his  own  accord. 
"Young  Lingg,"  he  used  to  say,  "was  worth 
three  men  to  him,  and  half  a  dozen  appren- 
tices." The  mother,  it  seems,  had  this  praise 
of  Herr  Wuermell  always  on  her  lips. 

As  soon  as  Lingg  was  out  of  his  time  and 
had  saved  some  money,  he  announced  his 
intention  of  emigrating,  and  in  spite  of  a 
dozen  good  offers  to  stay  in  Mannheim,  for 
some  reason  or  other  he  shook  the  dust  of 
Germany  off  his  feet,  and  came  to  New  York 
with  his  mother.  A  few  months  later  he 
brought  her  from  New  York  to  Chicago,  for 
her  lungs,  it  appeared,  could  not  stand  the 
moist  sea-air  of  Manhattan  Island.     In  Chi- 


THE  BOMB  117 

cago  at  first  she  seemed  to  rally;  then  caught 
cold,  and  grew  rapidly  weaker.  Lingg  did 
everything  he  could  for  her;  tended  her  day 
and  night  during  her  illness;  was  nurse  and 
son  in  one.  Like  most  strong  and  lonely 
natures  he  gave  his  confidence  to  few,  and  his 
affection  gained  in  intensity  through  concen- 
tration. He  was  devoted  to  his  mother, 
would  not  leave  her  bedside,  even  to  go  out 
with  Ida,  and  when  she  died  he  seemed  to 
take  a  dislike  to  life,  and  gave  himself  over  to 
melancholy  brooding. 

Ida  had  been  seduced  by  a  rich  young  club-  / 
man,  and  when  deserted  had  fallen  to  the/ 
streets.  There  she  met  Lingg,  who  was 
struck  with  her  misery  and  beauty,  and  gave 
her  love  and  hope;  saved  her,  as  she  used  to 
say,  from  hell.  Ida  spoke  of  her  connection 
with  Lingg  quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  in  a 
detached  sort  of  way,  as  if  there  were  nothing 
unusual  in  it,  nothing  to  be  explained,  much 
less  excused.  I  think  her  love  for  him  was 
so  engrossing,  her  affection  so  tender  and  self- 
absorbed,  that  she  could  not  think  of  herself 
apart  from  him.  After  the  death  of  his  moth- 
er she  came  to  live  with  him.  The  truth  is 
the  two  were  devoted  to  each  other,  and  united 
in  curiously  intimate  fashion.  When  Ida 
spoke  you  heard  Lingg's  phrases  continually. 
I  do  not  mean  that  she  aped  him;  but  the  very 


118  THE  BOMB 

tone  of  his  mind  had  infected  her  thought 
and  speech.  Perhaps  this  was  a  result  of 
their  isolation,  and  the  contempt  the  foolish 
American  world  has  for  people  living,  as  they 
lived,  outside  convention.  I  have  heard  Lingg 
say  in  fun,  **  There's  no  union  like  the  union 
of  pariahs;  wild  dogs  even  pack,  only  the 
tame  brutes  live  in  civilized  selfishness,  each 
for  himself  alone!" 

But  now,  after  a  long  period  of  happy  in- 
timacy, Ida  had  begun  to  grow  anxious  about 
Lingg.  "He's  taking  these  strikes  to  heart," 
she  told  me,  "and  any  bullying  or  tyrannical 
use  of  strength  drives  him  mad  ..."  and  she 
looked  at  me,  I  suppose,  to  see  if  I  divined 
her  meaning.  At  the  time  I  did  not  under- 
stand; but  in  the  calm  light  of  memory  I  see 
it  all  clearly.  Lingg,  though  infinitely  stronger 
and  more  resolute  than  Shelley;  indeed,  partly 
because  of  his  immense  strength  and  resolu- 
tion, resembled  the  English  poet  in  one  es- 
sential.    He,  too,  was 

" the  nerve  o'er  which  do  creep 

The  else  unfelt  oppressions  of  mankind." 

And  Ida's  heart  shrank  with  tragic  appre- 
hension of  what  might  happen;  or  did  she 
know,  even  then,  with  the  sad  prescience  of 
love.^  I  think  she  did;  but  whether  I  am 
right  or  wrong  in  this,  at  least  I  myself  was 
wholly  blind,  altogether  in  the  dark,  and  be- 


THE  BOMB  119 

yond  being  vaguely  affected  by  her  fears  was 
completely  at  my  ease. 

A  little  later,  after  I  had  got  to  know  Lingg 
well,  I  met  him  one  day  in  court:  Fischer  had 
brought  an  action  against  Bonfield,  the  police- 
man, for  injuries;  I  was  one  of  the  witnesses; 
there  were  three  or  four  of  us.  We  all  swore 
the  same  thing,  that  Fischer  did  not  touch 
Bonfield;  but  simply  remonstrated  with  him 
for  striking  Fielden.  Eight  or  nine  police- 
men, however,  one  after  the  other,  got  up  and 
swore  that  Fischer  had  struck  Bonfield,  and 
though  they  admitted  that  he  had  no  weapon, 
still,  the  jury  chose  to  believe  that  Bonfield 
had  been  struck  first  and  that  he  had  only 
bludgeoned  an  unarmed  man  in  self-defence. 
The  verdict  for  the  police  was  hailed  with  an 
unanimous  cheer  that  came  as  from  one  throat. 
They  cheered  a  lie,  all  those  hundreds  in  the 
court,  cheered  it  with  one  voice,  and  at  the 
same  time,  cheered  the  brutality  of  the  police 
— ^giving  the  brute,  Bonfield,  Hcense  to  go  on 
and  do  worse. 

I  do  not  know  what  effect  that  cheer  had  on 
others;  but  it  roused  helLin  me,  and  I  turned 
and  glared  at  them— they  were  trying  to  make 
outlaws  of  us.  At  this  moment  I  caught 
Lingg  looking  at  Bonfield  with  that  flaming 
regard  of  his;  I  saw  that  Bonfield  was  uneasy 
under  it.     The  next  moment  Lingg  looked 


120  THE  BOMB 

down  and  a  little  later  we  came  out  of  the 
court  together. 

"An   infamous,  infamous  verdict,"  I  cried. 

"Yes,"  Lingg  agreed,  "the  prejudice  is 
very  strong;  things  will  get  worse  before  they 
get   better." 

The  words  conjured  up  the  great  room,  the 
exultation  of  the  police,  the  contempt  in  the 
faces  of  the  bystanders  for  us  poor  foreigners 
who  were  simply  trying  to  get  justice. 

I  walked  on  with  Lingg;  his  quiet  was 
ominous.  "Damn  them!"  I  cried  despair- 
ingly.    "What  can  we  do?" 

"Nothing,"  was  the  answer.  "The  time 
is  not  come  yet." 

I  stared  at  him,  while  my  heart  beat  so 
loudly  I  could  hear  it.  "'Yet,'"  I  echoed. 
"What  do  you  mean?"  He  looked  at  me 
searchingly. 

"Nothing,"  he  said;  "let  us  talk  of  some- 
thing else.     Have  you  seen  Parsons  lately?" 

"No,"  I  replied,  "I  have  not;  but  tell  me 
something.  Parsons  and  the  rest  take  it  for 
granted  that  w^ealth  is  merely  another  name 
for  robbery,  and  they  deny  the  rich,  or  rob- 
bers, even  ability.     Is  that  your  view  of  it?" 

He  turned  to  me:  "Moderate  wealth  is 
'often  honestly  earned;  still,  riches  always  re- 
present greed  rather  than  capacity.  If  a 
I  man  has  real  capacity  he  must  want  twenty 


THE  BOMB  121 

other  things  besides  money,  some  of  them 
probably  more  than  money,  mustn't  he? 
Nearly  all  the  rich  men  I've  known,  have 
been  cunning  and  mean,  but  nothing  more. 
No  one  except  some  fortunate  inventor  ever 
made  a  million  honestly." 

"But  why  are  we  all  suffering  so?  Can 
the  poverty  and  misery  be  mended  ?"  I  asked. 

"A  great  deal  of  it,"  he  replied;  "Germany 
is  far  healthier  and  happier  than  America." 

"That's  true,"  I  cried;  "but  why?" 

"The  worst  fault  in  our  civilization  here," 
said  Lingg,  "is  that  it  is  not  complex  enough. 
It  holds  up  one  prize  before  all  of  us — riches. 
But  many  of  us  do  not  want  wealth;  we  want 
a  small  competency  without  care  or  fear. 
We  ought  to  be  able  to  get  that  as  employees 
in  some  department  of  State.  That  would 
remove  us  from  the  competition,  and  tend  to 
increase  the  wages  of  those  who  live  in  the 
whirl  of  competition.  Some  of  us,  too,  are 
born  students,  want  to  give  ourselves  to  the 
study  of  this,  that,  or  the  other  science;  there 
ought  to  be  chemical  laboratories  in  every 
street;  physical  laboratories  in  every  town 
with  posts  attached  at  small  pay  for  those 
who  would  give  their  lives  to  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge;  studios,  too,  for  artists; 
State-aided  theatres.  Life  must  be  made 
richer  by  making  it  more  complex.     By  not 


122  THE  BOMB 

reserving  whole  fields  of  industry  to  the 
State,  by  giving  everything  to  the  individual, 
we  are  driving  all  men  into  this  mad  race  for 
riches;  hence  suffering,  misery,  discontent, 
the  ill-health  of  the  whole  organism.  The 
brain  and  heart  have  their  own  rights,  and 
should  not  be  forced  to  serve  the  belly.  We 
turn  flowers  into  manure." 

While  he  was  talking  of  greedy  desire  as 
the  method  of  fulfilment,  I  was  thinking  of 
Elsie,  and  I  suppose  he  saw  that  I  was  not 
following  very  closely  what  he  said,  for  he 
broke  off,  and  the  talk  between  us  became 
lighter  and  more  detached  for  some  little 
while. 

We  reached  his  rooms,  and  I  picked  up  a 
book  from  the  table;  it  was  on  chemistry,  and 
dealt,  not  with  elementary  chemistry,  but 
with  quantitative  and  qualitative  analysis. 
I  was  not  a  little  astonished.  I  picked  up 
another  book  treating  of  gas  analysis  and 
explosives,  and  this  was  well-thumbed. 

"My  goodness,  Lingg,"  I  exclaimed,  "are 
you  a  chemist.^" 

"I  have  been  reading  it  a  little,"  he  replied. 

"A  little,"  I  repeated;  "but  how  on  earth 
did  you  get  as  far  as  this.^" 

"Any  one  who  can  read  to-day  has  the 
key,"  was  his  answer. 

"I  don't  know  so  much  about  that,"  I  said. 


THE  BOMB  123 

"I'd  hardly  know  how  to  go  to  work  to  make 
myself  a  master-chemist;  I  should  break  down 
over  some  difficulty  in  the  first  month." 

Lingg  smiled  that  inscrutable  smile  of  his 
which  I  was  beginning  to  know. 

"Yet  I  have  had  all  the  advantages,"  I 
went  on.  "I  was  properly  taught  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  elementary  mathematics,  and 
science,  and  shown  how  to  learn.  Our  educa- 
tion can't  be  worth  much." 

"Your  education  helps  you  to  learn  lan- 
guages, I  think;  you  know  American  better 
than  I  do." 

At  the  time  I  accepted  this  statement  as  a 
very  obvious  fact;  but  later  I  had  reason  to 
doubt  it.  Lingg  took  no  colour  from  his 
surroundings;  he  spoke  American  with  the 
strongest  South  German  accent,  but  he  knew 
the  language  astonishingly  well;  knew  words 
in  it  that  I  did  not  know,  though  he  had  less 
control  of  it  in  speech,  perhaps  because  his 
vocabulary  was  larger.  But  at  the  time  I 
accepted  his  statement.  A  moment  later  Ida 
came  into  the  room,  and  I  took  up  the  sub- 
ject of  books  again. 

"Astonishing  thing,  books;  the  greatest  plea- 
sure in  one's  life  is  reading.  And  quite  a 
modern  pleasure.  Three  or  four  centuries 
ago  only  the  richest  had  half  a  dozen  books. 
I  remember  a  princess  of  the  Visconti  in  the 


124  THE  BOMB 

sixteenth  century  leaving  a  large  fortune  and 
three  books  in  her  will.  To-day  the  poorest 
can  have  dozens  of  masterpieces." 

"A  questionable  good,"  said  Lingg.  "The 
greatest  piece  of  luck  in  my  life  was  that 
when  my  mind  began  to  open  I  had  no 
money  to  get  books.  I  had  to  work  all  day 
at  carpentering,  and  a  good  part  of  the  night, 
too,  to  get  money  to  live,  and  so  had  no  time 
for  reading.  I  had  to  solve  all  the  problems 
which  tormented  me  for  myself.  Our  educa- 
tion leans  too  much  on  books;  books  develop 
memories,  not  minds." 

"Would  you  do  away,  then,"  I  asked,  "with 
Latin  and  Greek,  and  all  the  discipline  of  the 
mind  which  they  afford?" 

"I  have  no  right  to  speak,"  he  said,  "as  I 
know  nothing  about  them  except  in  transla- 
tions; but  I  certainly  should.  Did  the  Greeks 
study  dead  languages?  Did  the  study  of 
^5  Greek  help  the  Romans  to  make  their  lan- 
guage better?  Or  did  it  hurt  them?  We 
.  live  too  much  in  the  past,"  he  said  abruptly. 
"All  our  lives  the  past  and  its  fears  impede 
and  lame  us.  We  should  live  in  the  present 
and  in  the  future.  I  do  not  know  any  poetry 
but  there  is  one  line  of  poetry  which  has  stuck 
in  my  memory — 

* . . . .  Our  souls  are  to  the  future  set. 
By  invisible  springs' 


THE  BOMB  125 

How  ignorant  that  education  in  mere  language 
leaves  us,  ignorant  of  all  the  important  things 
of  life.  We  start  in  life  at  eighteen  or  nineteen 
with  no  knowledge  of  our  own  body,  and  with 
little  or  no  knowledge  of  our  passions  and 
their  effects.  We  should  all  be  taught  phy- 
siology, the  rules  of  health,  of  waste  and  decay 
— that  is  vital.  We  should  all  know  some 
chemistry,  some  physics.  The  romantic  ones 
among  us  should  be  taught  astronomy  and 
the  use  of  the  telescope,  or  else  the  infinitely 
little  and  the  use  of  the  microscope.  We 
should  study  our  own  language,  German,  or 
English.  My  God!  What  a  heritage  those 
English  have  got,  and  how  they  neglect  their 
world-speech  for  a  smattering  of  Greek  and 
Latin.   .   .   . 

"But  let  us  come  into  the  air,  for  to-morrow 
I  go  to  work  again  on  a  new  job.  Won't  you 
put  on  your  things,  Ida;  our  holiday  time  is 
nearly  over." 

"Was  this  your  holiday  task,  then .^"  I 
asked,  touching  the  book  on  gas  analysis. 
Again  the  inscrutable  regard;  he  nodded. 

"But  why  do  you  want  to  analyse  gases?" 
I  went  on.  "  I  should  have  thought  that  would 
have  been  too  special  for  you." 

"Oh  no,"  he  said  lightly;  "my  idea  is  that 
you  should  know  something  about  everything, 
and   everything  about  something.     Till  you 


126  THE  BOMB 

push  the  light  of  knowledge  a  little  forward 
into  the  night  you've  done  nothing." 

I  gasped.  Lingg  spoke  of  widening  the 
demesne  of  knowledge  as  if  that  were  easy; 
yet  why  not?  We  went  out  into  the  sunlight; 
it  happened  to  be  one  of  those  clear,  sun-bathed 
days  in  an  American  winter  which  are  so  en- 
joyable. We  walked  along  the  lake  shore 
for  miles  and  miles,  but  I  did  most  of  the 
talking  with  Ida.  Then  we  had  lunch  and 
came  back  home. 

I  noticed  for  the  twentieth  time  Lingg's 
unusual  strength;  I  could  not  help  speaking 
of  it  once;  he  took  up  a  heavy  chair  and  handed 
it  to  me  over  the  table  as  if  it  had  been  a  fork 
or  a  spoon;  it  astonished  me;  his  body  was 
like  his  mind,  of  extraordinary  power. 

"It's  very  natural,"  cried  Ida.  "He  runs 
for  a  mile  or  so  every  morning,  and  comes  in 
drenched  with  perspiration." 

On  our  return  it  was  growing  dark;  they 
both  pressed  me  to  go  to  a  theatre  and  see  a 
German  play  that  was  being  given,  a  comedy 
by  Hartleben,  I  think;  but  I  could  not  go.  I 
had  something  better  to  do,  so  I  said  "Good 
evening!"  to  Ida  and  Louis  at  their  door  and 
hurried  off  to  Elsie. 

On  my  way  to  her,  I  began  to  puzzle  my- 
self, "What  does  Lingg  mean?"  In  Spies's 
oflSce,   at   Parsons's   meetings,   I   had   heard 


THE  BOMB  127 

vague  threats,  but  I  paid  no  further  attention 
to  them.  I  knew  that  Parsons  let  off  all  his 
steam  in  talking  and  Spies  in  writing,  but 
when  Lingg  said,  "the  time  is  not  come  yet," 
that  "yet"  was  fraught  with  menace — was 
awful.  My  heart  beat  fast  as  I  recalled  the 
quiet,  slow  words  and  quieter  tone.  Then 
the  chemistry  books,  and  those  pages  on 
modern  explosives — every  formula  under- 
lined. By  God!  if — ^I  felt  as  if  I  were  in  the 
presence  of  a  huge  force  and  waiting  for  an 
extraordinary  impact. 

"Sleep-walking,  are  you.^"  cried  a  voice. 
I  turned  and  found  Raben  beside  me.  "I 
saw  you  in  the  court,"  he  said;  "but  you  and 
Lingg  were  on  the  other  side  of  the  room,  and 
you  disappeared  after  the  verdict;  I  looked 
for  you,  but  you  had  vanished.  A  silly  case, 
wasn't  it .?" 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  I  said; 
"I  thought  it  was  a  just  case,  and  a  disgrace- 
ful verdict." 

"You  didn't  surely  expect  an  American 
jury  to  give  a  verdict  against  the  police  and 
in  favour  of  an  epileptic  like  Fischer,  did 
you .?" 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  holding  on  to  myself.  "I 
expected  an  honest  verdict." 

"Honest,"  he  repeated,  shrugging  his 
shoulders.     "The  jury  believed  ten  American 


128  THE  BOMB 

policemen  in  preference  to  four  foreigners 
honestly  enough." 

"Then  I'm  a  liar?"  I  turned  to  him  hotly. 

"My  dear  Schnaubelt,"  he  said,  "even  you 
can  be  mistaken;  the  aflSrmative,  too,  is  always 
stronger  than  a  negative;  the  policemen  say 
they  saw  Fischer  strike  Bonfield.  You  can 
only  say  you  did  not  see  it;  but  he  may  have 
struck  him  without  your  seeing  it." 

What  w^as  the  use  of  arguing;  the  man  knew 
better.     I  tried  to  turn  the  conversation. 

"Are  you  working  for  *The  New  York 
Herald,'  still?" 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "and  they  like  my  stuff. 
I  had  a  'scoop'  to-day  on  that  verdict;  I 
wired  it  before  the  police  had  finished  testify- 
ing; I  knew  how  it  would  be."  He  turned  to 
me  abruptly.  "May  I  speak  openly  to  you  ?" 
he  asked. 

"Of  course,"  I  replied.     "What  is  it?" 

"Well,"  he  began  slowly,  "don't  go  about 
so  much  with  that  fellow  Lingg;  he's  badly 
looked  upon;  there  are  fishy  stories  about  him, 
and  he's  mad  w^ith  conceit." 

I  was  about  to  break  out  again;  but  I  would 
not  give  him  the  paltry  satisfaction  of  thinking 
he  had  stirred  me. 

"Really,"  I  said  gravely;  and  then,  "his 
disease  is  not  catching,  is  it?"  and  I  laughed 
— genius  not  being  infectious. 


THE  BOMB  129 

I  caught  a  gleam  in  Raben's  eye,  and  felt 
certain  of  his  spite. 

"All  right,"  he  remarked  coolly;  "remem- 
ber I  warned  you.  You  know,  I  suppose, 
that  Miss  Ida  was  seduced  by  Lingg  and  sent 
on  the  streets  by  him — a  pretty  couple!" 
His  tone  was  more  infamous  even  than  his 
words. 

The  blood  grew  hot  in  my  temples;  but  I 
held  to  my  resolves  to  show  nothing,  to  give 
the  venomous  creature  no  satisfaction. 

"I  know  all  I  want  to  know,"  I  said  care- 
lessly; "but  now  I  must  bid  you  *good-bye,'" 
and  we  parted. 

"What  a  vile  snake!"  I  thought  to  myself, 
and  then  wondered  was  Raben  jealous,  or 
what  was  the  matter  with  him;  I  did  not  know 
then  that  envy  and  wounded  vanity  would 
lead  a  man  to  worse  than  slander.  I  gave 
up  the  riddle;  Raben  was  vile  by  nature,  I 
decided;  but  if  I  had  known  how  vile — ^per- 
haps it's  better  that  we  should  not  see  beyond 
our  noses. 

I  had  promised  to  meet  Elsie;  we  had  ar- 
ranged to  meet  at  least  three  times  during  the 
week,  and  we  generally  spent  the  whole  of 
Sunday  together.  It  was  one  of  my  griefs 
that  though  I  had  introduced  Elsie  to  Ida  and 
Lingg  she  would  not  become  friendly  with 


130  THE  BOMB 

them;  she  disliked  Ida  for  calling  herself 
Miss  Miller  while  living  openly  with  Lingg. 

"If  she  called  herself  Mrs.  Lingg,  I  should 
not  mind  so  much,"  she  used  to  say.  Elsie 
was  always  conventional,  and  was  certain  to 
be  found  on  the  side  of  the  established  order. 
Everything  exceptional  or  abnormal  seemed 
to  her  erratic,  and  in  itself  evil.  Ida,  for  ex- 
ample, never  wore  corsets;  Elsie  wore  them 
always;  though  her  lithe  figure,  little  round 
breasts,  and  narrow  hips  would  have  looked 
better  unsupported  than  Ida's  more  generous 
outlines. 

I  often  tried  to  explain  to  myself  this  con- 
ventionalism in  Elsie,  but  without  result. 
She  had  as  much  brains  as  Ida;  sometimes  I 
thought  her  cleverer;  she  had  certainly  more 
temperament — was  it  distrust  of  her  own 
passionate  feelings  that  made  her  cling  to 
accepted  rules? 

In  any  case,  it  was  the  shock  of  contradic- 
tories in  her  which  made  her  so  eternally  new 
and  attractive  to  me;  the  passionate  impulses 
in  her,  beating  wave-like  against  her  immutable 
self-control,  lent  her  an  infinite  enchantment. 
Had  she  been  cold,  I  should  never  have  cared 
for  her;  had  she  given  way  to  passion  I  should 
have  loved  her;  but  never  admired  her,  and 
even  my  love  perhaps  would  then  never 
have  been  whipped  to  ecstasy  as  it  was  by 


THE  BOMB  131 

her  perpetual  alternation  of  yielding  and 
denying.  I  had  to  conquer  her  afresh  every 
time  I  met  her;  but  this  talk  of  Lingg's  about 
the  power  of  mere  desire  to  get  its  own  way, 
influenced  me  unconsciously,  I  think,  when 
I  was  with  her. 

There  was  no  wilful  purpose  of  seduction 
in  me;  that  I  think  is  often  assumed  without 
reason;  the  natural  desire  is  there  blindly 
seeking  its  own  gratification;  men  and  wo- 
men are  the  playthings  of  nature's  forces. 

But  whatever  the  cause  I  seemed  to  be 
gradually  making  way  with  Elsie.  Since  I 
had  written  for  the  American  papers  I  had 
been  earning  more  money,  and  this  extra 
money  enabled  me  to  take  her  out  to  dinner 
and  the  theatre,  and  to  drive  her  home  after- 
wards, which  was  a  special  delight  to  her. 
One  night  I  had  had  a  private  room;  we  had 
dined  together  and  then  sat  before  the  fire 
talking.  She  came  and  sat  on  my  knees. 
After  she  had  been  in  my  arms  for  perhaps 
an  hour  her  resistance  seemed  to  be  melting. 
Suddenly  she  stopped  me  and  drew  away. 
I  could  not  help  reproaching  her. 

"If  I  were  rich,  you  would  not  leave  me." 

"If  you  were  rich,"  she  said,  facing  me, 
"everything  would  be  easy;  it's  always  easy 
to  yield  to  love."  She  flushed  and  stared  into 
the  fire.     A  moment  later  she  went  on,  as  if 


132  THE  BOMB 

speaking  to  herself — "How  I  hate  poverty; 
hate  it,  hate  it!  I  have  been  poor  all  my  life,'* 
she  said,  sitting  on  the  arm  of  the  chair  and 
looking  me  straight  in  the  eyes.  "You  don't 
know  what  that  means." 

"Don't  I,  indeed?"  I  interjected. 

She  went  on — 

"No,  you  don't  know  what  it  means  to  a 
girl  to  be  poor,  mean  poor — cent  poor,  not 
dollar  poor — to  go  to  school  in  winter  through 
the  snow  with  icy  feet  because  your  boots  are 
old  and  patched,  and  can't  keep  out  the  wet; 
to  wake  in  the  night  and  see  your  mother 
trying  to  mend  'em,  and  crying  over  'em. 
By  poor,  I  mean  cold  always  in  winter,  be- 
cause bread  and  drippin'  and  coffee  don't 
keep  you  warm." 

She  paused  again;  I  waited  patiently,  my 
heart  hurting  me  in  pity. 

"I  was  always  hungry  as  a  child,  always, 
and  cold  every  winter.  That  was  childhood 
to  me.  When  I  grew  up  and  saw  I  was  pretty 
and  fetched  men,  do  you  think  I  didn't  want 
to  go  to  swell  restaurants  and  wear  pretty 
frocks  ?" 

"I  haven't  done  it  because  of  my  mother, 
who's  a  darling;  but  is  she  always  to  be  poor? 
No,  sir,  not  if  I  can  help  it,  and  I'm  going  to, 
you  bet,"  and  she  cocked  her  little  round  chin 
defiantly.     "I'd  just  die  for  her,  right  now; 


THE  BOMB  133 

she  lives  for  me.  I  want  to  get  everything 
nice  for  her  now  she's  getting  on. 

**You  mustn't  think  badly  of  me;  girls  want 
money  and  little  comforts  more  than  men; 
we're  not  so  strong,  I  reckon.  I've  known 
boys  to  like  fightin'  the  cold  and  hunger.  I 
never  knew  a  girl  who  did.  I  hate  'em 
both.   .   .   . 

"I've  seen  boys,  big  boys,  men,  proud  of 
dirty  old  clothes;  put  'em  on  and  like  'em.  I 
never  saw  a  girl  proud  of  an  ugly  old  frock, 
never.  We  want  to  be  nice  and  dainty  and 
comfy  more  than  men." 

She  looked  so  tantalizingly  pretty  that  I 
could  not  help  taking  her  in  my  arms,  and 
kissing  her,  and  saying  to  her — 

"But  I'll  get  you  all  that,  and  much  more, 
and  it  will  be  heaps  more  fun  getting  it  bit  by 
bit." 

"And  suppose  you  don't  get  it?  Never 
get  it  ?"  said  Elsie,  holding  me  away  from  her. 
"We  girls  don't  want  risks.  I  hate  ups  and 
downs.  I  want  a  comfy  house,  and  nice 
things,  always,  sure,  sure." 

"Are  you  afraid  to  risk  it.?"  I  asked.^ 

"It  isn't  the  risk,  even  of  being  poor,"  she 
said.  "How  do  you  think  I'd  feel  if  I  pulled 
you  down.?  Oh  yes,  some  time  or  other  the 
strain  on  you  might  be  too  much.  You  might 
get   out   of   work    or  times    would  be  hard, 


134  THE  BOMB 

and  you'd  be  shut  out,  and  then — I  should 
feel  I'd  made  it  harder  for  you.  And  my 
mother  ?  No,  sir.  Love's  the  best  thing  in 
the  world,  the  honey  of  life;  but  poverty  is 
the  worst,  the  vinegar,  and  a  little  vinegar 
soon  takes  away  the  taste  of  the  honey.  I 
won't  be  engaged,  and  I  won't  yield,  for 
that  would  be  the  same  thing,  and  you 
mustn't  be  a  tiny  bit  hurt." 

I  was  not  hurt:  to  be  with  her  was  a  per- 
petual intoxication;  but  I  went  back  to  kissing 
her  and  praising  her,  as  the  drunkard  goes 
back  to  his  drink,  the  opium-smoker  to  his 
pipe,  to  find  life  in  a  higher  expression,  an 
intenser  reality. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  all  tliis  court- 
ing was  merely  sensuous;  the  spirit  always 
counted  as  much  as  the  body.  Often  and 
often  I  would  sit  and  recite  German  poems 
to  her,  translating  them  into  English  as  I 
went  along;  little  bits  of  Heine;  folk  songs, 
the  pearls  hidden  in  the  rough  life  of  the  com- 
mon people,  words  that  spring  from  the  heart 
and  are  of  universal  appeal.  I  remember 
one  day  making  her  cry  with  those  simple  four 
lines  of  Heine,  which  hold  in  them  all  the 
heart-ache  of  life,  distilled  into  pure  beauty: 

**Es  ist  eine  alte  (leschichte 

Doch  bleibt  Sie  iinmer  neu, 
Und  wem  Sie  just  passieret 

Dem  bricht  das  Hera  entzwei." 


THE  BOMB  135 

There  we  sat  holding  each  other  like  two 
children,  while  the  tears  of  the  world's  sorrow 
flooded  our  eyes. 

In  telling  the  story  of  my  idolatry,  the 
tenderness  and  affection,  the  passion  of  ad- 
miration, all  the  fibres  of  spiritual  attachment 
are  difficult  to  bring  into  the  proper  perspec- 
tive, because  they  were  always  present,  and  I 
should  only  give  the  effect  of  monotony  if  I 
dwelt  on  them,  it  seems  to  me,  where  there 
was  no  monotony. 

My  passion,  on  the  other  hand,  was  full 
of  incidents,  and  always  new.  The  first 
time  I  ventured  to  kiss  her  neck  (it  makes  me 
flush  still  to  think  of  it)  marks  an  epoch  in 
my  life;  every  liberty  gained  was  an  intoxica- 
tion, so  that  it  may  seem  in  telling  the  story  as 
if  I  gave  undue  place  to  passion. 

I  don't  know  why,  but  her  figure  awakened 
in  me  a  sort  of  insane  curiosity.  Her  hands 
were  so  slim  and  pretty;  I  wanted  to  see  her 
feet,  and  was  delighted  when  I  found  them 
slim,  too,  and  arched,  with  tiny  ankles.  But 
then  she  drew  away  from  me. 

*' That's  mean  of  you,  Elsie,"  I  complained. 
"If  you  deny  the  one  thing,  you  ought  to  give 
me  as  much  as  you  can — please."  The  ar- 
gument was  irrefutable,  but  another  had 
more  weight. 

"You  are  perfectly  beautiful,  I  know,  but 


136  THE  BOMB 

you  hide  yourself  as  if  you  were  ugly — please 
let  me,  please.  Let  my  eyes  have  pleasure, 
too,  please."  The  compliment  and  the  plead- 
ing persistence  together  triumphed,  and  sooner 
or  later  I  caught  a  glimpse,  or  was  permitted 
a  glimpse  of  the  slim  round  limbs.  She  was 
beautifully  made,  what  the  French  would 
call  a  Jausse  viaigre;  small  bones,  perfectly 
covered,  a  slight  lissom  figure.  All  my  senses 
grew  quick,  my  blood  hot;  but  I  knew  by  this 
time  that  the  cooler  I  appeared,  the  more  un- 
conscious, the  further  she  would  yield. 

Half  an  hour  afterwards  she  pushed  me 
from  her  suddenly,  and  rose  up  and  went  in 
front  of  the  glass. 

"Look  how  my  face  is  blazing,  sir,  and  my 
hair  is  all  coming  down;  we  must  not  meet 
any  more.  No,  I  mean  it.  This  must  be 
the  last  time." 

Oh,  I  knew  the  words  by  heart,  the  terrible 
words  which  seemed  to  clamp  my  heart  with 
fear  and  turn  me  into  a  blind  beast  rage. 
Whenever  she  felt  intensely,  had  been  made 
to  feel  against  her  will,  she  always  threatened 
not  to  come  again.  I  was  always  in  dread 
of  losing  her,  always  in  greatest  dread  when 
I  had  most  nearly  brought  her  to  complete 
self-surrender;  she  seemed  to  avenge  her 
own  yielding  on  me,  and,  poor  fool  that 
I  was,     I    resented    this     as     unfair.      But 


THE  BOMB  137 

somehow  or  other  before  parting  we  nearly 
always  made  it  up  again;  nine  times  out  of  ten 
through  my  humble  submission.  I  am  proud 
to  think  now  that,  at  any  rate,  I  had  sense 
enough  to  know  that  yielding  and  being 
humble,  was  the  only  way  to  complete  triumph 
over  my  proud,  imperious  beauty. 

It  was  very  hard  for  me  to  tell  whether  I 
was  winning  her  or  not.  Over  a  period  of  three 
months,  however,  I  saw  that  I  had  made 
great  advances,  that  what  was  not  permitted 
at  first  was  allowed  to  me  now  without  ques- 
tion; but  often  from  day  to  day  the  waves  of 
her  submission  seemed  to  ebb. 

One  thing  was  certain,  I  was  falling  more 
hopelessly  in  love  with  her  week  by  week; 
every  meeting  made  me  more  devoted  to  her, 
more  and  more  her  slave,  or  was  it  the  slave 
of  my  own  desire.^  I  could  not  separate 
them;  Elsie  was  to  me  desire  incarnate. 

As  summer  came  she  grew  prettier  and 
prettier;  the  light,  thin  dresses  moulded  her; 
she  was  like  a  Tanagra  statuette,  I  said  to 
myself,  as  beautiful  as  one  of  the  swaying 
figures  on  a  Greek  vase.  And  I  carried  the 
fragrance  of  her  lips,  and  the  slim  roundness 
of  her  limbs  with  me  from  meeting  to  meeting. 


CHAPTER  V 

MY  memory  now  of  the  sequence  of  events 
is  perhaps  not  so  good  as  it  might  be; 
but  having  no  wish  to  mis-state  the  facts,  and 
no  power  of  getting  at  the  newspapers  which 
might  vivify  or  perhaps  distort  my  memory, 
I  shall  simply  set  down  my  impressions.  It 
seems  to  me  that  about  this  time  there  was  a 
certain  slackening,  both  in  the  revolutionary 
current  of  feeling,  and  in  the  brutality  of  re- 
pression. A  strike  of  street-car  employees, 
which  occurred  about  this  time,  did  not  lead 
to  anything;  these  employees  were  for  the 
most  part  American,  and  the  police  never 
attempted  to  interfere  with  their  public  meet- 
ings, or  to  limit  their  freedom  of  speech. 
This  wholesome  respect  of  the  police  for 
people  of  their  own  race,  naturally  caused 
some  indignation  among  us  foreigners  who 
had  never  been  treated  fairly  by  the  authorities; 
but  not  much.  Young  men,  and  most  of  the 
foreign  workmen  were  young  men,  are  so  in- 
clined to  hope,  that  we  at  once  assumed  that 
the  police  had  learned  wisdom  and  self-con- 
trol, and  that  there  would  be  no  more  blud- 


THE  BOMB  139 

geonings,  no  more  brutalities,  and  so  our  talks 
at  the  Lehr  and  Wehr  Verein  assumed  im- 
mediately a  somewhat  academic  tone. 

One  discussion  was  of  my  making,  and  I 
recall  it  because  it  shows  in  what  a  masterly 
way  Lingg's  mind  worked  even  when  he  was 
at  every  disadvantage.  I  had  talked  to  him 
one  afternoon  about  the  Gorgias  of  Plato.  I 
had  always  thought  that  the  argument  of 
Callicles  about  laws  was  the  furthest  throw 
of  Plato's  thought,  the  wisest  hypothesis  on 
the  subject  which  had  come  out  of  antiquity. 
Lingg  asked  me  to  set  it  forth  at  length  that 
evening  at  the  meeting  of  the  Lehr  and  Wehr 
Verein,  and  I  consented.  The  argument  is 
very  simple.  Socrates  demolishes  adversary 
after  adversary  with  ease,  till  at  length  he 
comes  to  Callicles,  whom  Plato  pictures  as  a 
sort  of  well-bred  man  of  the  world.  Socrates 
as  usual  tries  to  fly  away  from  the  argument 
on  a  rhetorical  statement  about  the  sacredness 
of  laws,  the  same  theme  which  he  developed 
later  in  the  Crito,  when  he  declared  that  the 
laws  on  this  earth  are  but  faint  reflections  of 
the  eternal,  divine  laws  which  obtain  through- 
out the  universe,  and  throughout  eternity,  and 
which,  therefore  should  be  obeyed.  Callicles 
throws  a  new  light  on  the  subject;  he  says 
that  laws  are  merely  made  by  the  weak  for 
their  own  protection.     The  strong  man  is  not 


140  THE  BOMB 

allowed  to  knock  down  the  weak  one  and  take 
away  his  wife  or  his  goods,  as  he  would  do  in 
a  state  of  nature.  The  laws  are  a  sort  of 
sheepfold;  walls  put  up  by  the  weak  in  their 
own  interest  and  for  their  own  protection 
against  the  strong;  mere  class  defences  which 
are  purely  selfish,  and  therefore  have  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  right  and  wrong,  and  are 
in  no  sense  sacred  or  divine. 

An  interesting  debate  followed,  but  nothing 
of  weight  was  said  on  the  subject  till  Lingg 
got  up.  His  very  method  of  speaking  had  a 
strange  individuality  about  it;  he  scarcely 
ever  used  an  adjective;  his  sentences  were 
made  up  of  verbs  and  nouns,  and  the  peculiar 
slowness  with  which  he  spoke  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  with  a  very  large  vocabulary  he  was 
resolved  upon  picking  the  right  word. 

"The  argument  of  Callicles  is  foolish," 
he  said;  "how  can  the  weak  make  defence 
against  the  strong,  the  sheep  against  the  wolves. 
Furthermore,  laws  are  not  for  the  protection 
of  persons,  primarily,  as  they  would  be  if  the 
weak  made  them;  but  for  the  protection  of 
property,  which  is  the  appanage  of  the  strong. 
Even  in  tliis  Christian  town  you  can  knock 
a  man  down  savagely,  injure  him  for  life,  and 
go  and  plead  excitement  or  rage,  and  pay  five 
dollars  and  a  quarter,  and  you  are  held  to  have 
purged  the  offence.  But  take  five  dollars  from 


THE  BOMB  141 

his  person,  even  without  injuring  him,  and 
you  will  probably  get  six  months'  imprison- 
ment, and  the  prosecution  will  be  conducted 
by  the  State.  Laws  are  made  for  the  protec- 
tion of  property;  they  are  made  by  the  strong 
in  their  own  interest;  the  wolf  wants  to  be 
assured  peaceable  enjoyment  of  his  *kill.'" 

Once  again  the  man  made  a  sensation;  but 
this  time  Raben  got  up  and  tried  to  dissipate 
the  impression.  He  talked  the  usual  vapid 
nonsense;  laws  protected  both  the  weak  and 
the  strong,  and  were  good  in  themselves.  He 
even  quoted  a  verse  of  Schiller  beginning — 

"Sei  im  Besitz " 

— a  sort  of  poetic  rendering  of  the  common 
American  saying,  "Possession  is  nine  parts 
of  the  law,"  without  seeing  that  Schiller  was 
speaking  ironically  No  one,  however,  paid 
any  attention  to  him  or  answered  him,  which, 
of  course,  enraged  him,  for  he  attributed  our 
silence  to  a  conspiracy  of  envy. 

I  could  not  help  asking  Lingg  to  explain 
how  he  hoped  for  any  improvement  if  it  was 
indeed  the  strong  who  made  the  laws  in  their 
own  interest.  He  answered  me  at  once,  having 
perhaps  thought  the  matter  over  long  before, 
for  in  no  other  way  could  I  explain  the  clear 
precision   of   his   statement. 

"At  all  times,"  he  said,  "some  of  the  wolves 
have  taken  the  side  of  the  sheep;  partly  out 


142  THE  BOMB 

of  pity,  partly  out  of  an  intimate  conviction 
that  they  must  first  lift  up  the  poor  if  they 
themselves  would  reach  a  higher  level  of  ex- 
istence. It  even  seems  to  me  probable,"  he 
went  on  slowly,  "that  men  are  gradually 
being  drawn  upwards  and  humanized  by  a 
power  working  through  them,  for  more  and 
more  of  the  strong  are  taking  the  part  of  the 
weak,  through  an  inborn  sense  of  justice  and 
fair  play.  A  man's  work  produces  ten  times 
as  much  now  as  it  did  before  we  knew  how  to 
use  steam  and  electricity;  it  seems  to  us  that 
the  labourer  has  a  right  to  a  part  of  this  extra 
product.  And  so  even  those  who  could  take 
it  all  from  him  are  inclined  to  leave  him  a 
little  of  what  he  has  created." 

He  ended  up  splendidly,  as  he  often  did, 
by  appealing  to  the  heart.  *' There  is  an 
intimate  conviction  in  all  of  us,"  he  said, 
"that  justice  is  better  than,  injustice,  even 
when  we  seem  to  profit  by  the  wrong;  generosity 
is  its  own  justification." 

Raben  sneered;  but  Raben  was,  perhaps, 
the  only  person  who  sneered.  Mommsen's 
"Caesar"  had  had  an  extraordinary  effect 
upon  me  when  I  read  it  as  a  boy,  and  when 
Lingg  was  speaking  my  thoughts  went  back 
at  once  to  Caesar.  He  spoke  with  strange 
authority,  and  with  a  still  nobler  spirit  than 
Caesar's  ;  but  it  was  the  same  spirit,  the  spirit 


THE  BOMB  143 

which  induced  Caesar  to  pass  a  law  letting  off 
all  debtors  with  a  payment  of  three-quarters 
of  their  indebtedness,  and  preventing  their 
persons  being  sold  for  debt. 

It  was  from  this  time  on  that  I  began  to 
realize  how  great  a  man  Louis  Lingg  was. 
Whatever  the  question  might  be,  if  he  spoke 
at  all,  he  spoke  as  a  master.  At  the  end  of 
the  debate  Raben  came  up  to  us  and  was  very 
pleasant;  he  made  himself  particularly  agree- 
able to  Lingg;  it  struck  me  as  disloyal  and 
false  of  him,  and  it  hurt  me  that  Lingg  should 
receive  his  advances,  or  appear  to  receive 
them,  in  his  usual  courteous  way. 

When  we  got  out  of  the  meeting,  and  were 
on  our  way  home  together,  Lingg  turned  to 
me  with  the  question — 

*' Why  do  you  bring  that  man  Raben  to  our 
meetings  ?     Are  you  such  a  friend  of  his  ?" 

I  immediately  put  him  right — 

"Raben  brought  me  to  the  meeting  of  the 
Lehr  and  Wehr  Verein  first  of  all.  He  told 
me  he  was  a  great  friend  of  yours." 

''I  met  him,"  said  Lingg,  "only  once  before 
I  saw  him  there  with  you  in  the  meeting;  he 
came  to  me  as  a  reporter  of  *The  New  York 
Herald';  I  answered  his  questions,  and  that 
was  all." 

I  then  told  him  all  I  knew  of  Raben,  and 
something  foolishly  good-natured  in  me  made 


144  THE  BOMB 

me  paint  the  man  better  than  he  was,  paint 
him  in  high  lights  and  leave  out  the  shadows 
which  existed,  as  I  had  already  reason  to 
know.  When  I  think  of  my  folly  I  could  kill 
myself;  if  I  had  only  told  Lingg  then  the  bare, 
simple  truth  about  Raben,  things  might  have 
turned  out  very  differently;  but  I  was  foolish- 
ly, feebly  optimistic,  sentimentally  desirous 
of  praising  the  damned  creature  because  he 
was  a  German,  or  I  thought  he  was  because 
he  spoke  the  language — as  if  a  viper  has  a 
nationality!  And  all  the  while  Lingg's  deep 
eyes  rested  on  me,  searching  me,  reading  me, 
I  am  sure,  rightly. 

When  we  got  home,  I  went  up  with  them 
as  usual  for  half  an  hour's  talk  before  going 
back  to  my  rooms,  when  suddenly  Lingg  be- 
gan again. 

"You  regard  Raben  as  true?" 

"Surely,"  I  exclaimed,  "he  is  with  us,  I 
suppose  ?" 

"Did  you  notice  how  he  spoke  to-night?" 
asked  Lingg.  (I  nodded.)  "I  mean  that 
jargon  of  American  and  German  which  he 
uses.  Did  you  remark  how  he  kept  repeat- 
ing two  or  three  words,  which  serve  him  as 
adjectives  for  everything?  *  Awful'  is  one, 
in  English,  *schaendlich — shameful'  is  another; 
he  immediately  translates  the  German  epithet 
into  English." 


THE  BOMB  145 

I  nodded  my  head,  wondering  what  was 
coming. 

Suddenly  Lingg  produced  a  piece  of  paper. 

"Here  is  an  anonymous  letter  I  got.  I  do 
not  propose  to  read  it,  but  here  are  four  lines 
in  it,  and  in  the  four  lines  there  i^'schaend- 
lich — shameful'  twice,  and  'awful*  twice.  A 
letter  denouncing  you  as  a  traitor  to  the  cause 
and  throwing  dirt  at  me;  the  man  is  too  ma- 
lignant to  be  effective." 

He  squeezed  the  letter  into  a  small  ball  in 
his  hand  while  he  spoke,  opened  the  stove 
door  and  threw  it  in.  As  he  straightened  him- 
self he  looked  me  full  in  the  face. 

"Raben  wrote  that  letter.  Be  on  your 
guard   against  him." 

''Good  God!"  I  cried.  "What  do  you 
mean  .P" 

Suddenly  the  icy-calm  seemed  to  break 
up— 

"I  mean,"  and  again  that  menace  was  in 
his  voice,  "that  he  is  envious  of  us,  of  all  of 
us,  of  you,  of  me,  of  our  good  faith,  of  our 
liking  for  one  another.  Look  at  the  thin 
mean  face  of  him,  the  washed-out  hair  and 
eyes;  something  feeble  and  assertive  in  the 
whole  creature!  Let  us  talk  of  something 
else." 

And  not  one  word  more  did  he  ever  say  on 
the  subject.     Thinking  it  all  over,  of  what  I 


146  THE  BOMB 

had  let  Raben  say  to  me  about  Lingg  and 
about  Ida,  my  cheeks  blazed  with  shame.  I 
could  have  killed  the  foul-tongued  snake;  I 
wish  now  that  I  had. 

All  this  time  Ida  said  nothing;  but  her  tact 
soon  smoothed  over  the  sore  place,  and  brought 
us  back  to  kindly  feelings,  though  she,  too, 
felt  compelled  to  say  that  she  had  never  liked 
Raben,  that  she  felt  that  Raben  was  not  with 
us,  but  against  us. 

"From  now  on,"  I  said,  "I  will  take  care, 
you  may  be  sure."  And  so  the  matter  drop- 
ped. .  .  . 

The  lull  in  the  political  storm  did  not  last 
long.  Almost  immediately  after  the  events 
I  have  talked  about,  I  tliink  some  time  in 
March,  there  came  a  strike  among  the  pig 
packers.  Nine  out  of  ten  workmen  in  these 
establishments  were  Germans  and  Swedes, 
oflBcered  by  Americans.  The  foremen  and 
speeders-up,  that  is,  were  nearly  all  Ameri- 
cans, and  these  foremen  took  small  part  in 
the  strike. 

The  very  first  meeting  of  the  foreign  work- 
men on  strike  was  dispersed  by  the  police, 
and  there  was  some  passive  resistance  on  the 
part  of  the  strikers.  The  police  were  led  by 
a  Captain  Schaack,  who  seemed  to  have  model- 
led himself  on  Bonfield.  These  strikers  w^ere 
not  quite  ordinary  workmen;  they  were  not 


THE  BOMB  147 

only  young  and  strong;  but  they  had  learned 
the  use  of  knives,  and  they  were  not  minded 
to  be  clubbed  by  the  pohee  like  sheep.  Par- 
sons threw  himself  into  the  strike  with  his 
accustomed  vigour,  and  so  did  Spies.  In  his 
weekly  paper.  Parsons  called  on  American 
workmen  to  stand  by  their  foreign  brothers 
and  resist  the  tyranny  of  the  employers.  The 
fighting  spirit  grew  in  intensity  from  hour  to 
hour,  and  the  flame  of  revolt  was  no  doubt 
fanned  by  "The  Alarm"  and  "Die  Arbeiter 
Zeitung." 

I  find  in  reading  over  what  I  have  already 
written  that  I  have  not  differenced  Parsons 
and  Spies  sufficiently,  though  they  were  in 
reality  completely  different  personalities.  Par- 
sons was  a  man  of  very  ordinary  reading,  but 
with  really  great  oratorical  powers;  arguments 
to  him  were  but  occasions  for  rhetoric,  and 
he  made  mistakes  in  his  statements  and  in 
the  sequence  of  his  reasoning,  but  he  had 
genuine  enthusiasm;  he  believed  in  the  Eight 
Hours'  Bill  for  working-men,  and  a  minimum 
wage,  and  all  the  other  moderate  reforms 
which  commend  themselves  to  the  average 
American  workman. 

Spies,  on  the  other  hand,  was  an  idealist; 
far  better  read  than  Parsons  and  a  clearer 
thinker,  but  emotional  and  optimistic  to  an 
extraordinary  degree.     He  really  believed  in 


/ 


148  THE  BOMB 

the  possibility  of  an  ordered  Socialist  paradise 
on  earth,  from  which  individual  greed  and 
acquisitiveness  should  be  banished,  and  in 
which  all  men  should  share  the  good  things 
of  this  world  equally.  Blanc's  phrase  was 
always  on  his  lips,  "To  each  according  to 
his  needs;  from  each  according  to  his  powers." 

Both  Parsons  and  Spies  were  in  the  main 
unselfish,  and  both  spent  themselves  and 
their  substance  freely  in  the  cause  of  labour. 
Parsons  was  the  more  resolute  character; 
but  both  of  them  soon  became  marked  men, 
for  at  length  that  happened  which  from  the 
beginning  might  have  been  foreseen. 

A  meeting  was  called  on  a  waste  space  in 
Packerstown,  and  over  a  thousand  workmen 
came  together.  I  went  there  out  of  curiosity. 
Lingg,  I  may  say  here,  always  went  alone  to 
these  strike  meetings.  Ida  told  me  once  that 
he  suffered  so  much  at  them  that  he  could  not 
bear  to  be  seen,  and  perhaps  that  was  the 
explanation  of  his  solitary  ways.  Fielden, 
the  Englishman,  spoke  first,  and  was  cheered 
to  the  echo;  the  workmen  knew  him  as  a 
working-man  and  liked  him;  besides,  he 
talked  in  a  homely  way,  and  was  easy  to  under- 
stand. Spies  spoke  in  German  and  was 
cheered  also.  The  meeting  was  perfectly 
orderly  when  three  hundred  police  tried  to 
disperse  it.     The  action   was  ill-advised,   to 


THE  BOMB  149 

say  the  best  of  it,  and  tyrannical;  the  strikers 
were  hurting  no  one  and  interfering  with  no 
one.  Without  warning  or  reason  the  poHce 
tried  to  push  their  way  through  the  crowd  to 
the  speakers ;  finding  a  sort  of  passive  resistance 
and  not  being  able  to  overcome  it,  they  used 
their  clubs  savagely.  One  or  two  of  the  strik- 
ers, hot-heads,  bared  their  knives,  and  at  once 
the  police,  led  on  by  that  madman,  Schaack, 
drew  their  revolvers  and  fired.  It  looked  as 
if  the  police  had  been  waiting  for  the  oppor- 
tunity. Three  strikers  were  shot  dead  on  the 
spot,  and  more  than  twenty  were  wounded, 
several  of  them  dangerously,  before  the  mob 
drew  sullenly  away  from  the  horrible  place. 
A  leader,  a  word,  and  not  one  of  the  police 
would  have  escaped  alive;  but  the  leader  was 
not  there,  and  the  word  was  not  given,  so  the 
wrong  was  done,  and  went  unpunished. 

I  do  not  know  how  I  reached  my  room 
that  afternoon.  The  sight  of  the  dead  men 
lying  stark  there  in  the  snow  had  excited  me 
to  madness.  The  picture  of  one  man  followed 
me  like  an  obsession;  he  was  wounded  to 
death,  shot  through  the  lungs;  he  lifted  him- 
self up  on  his  left  hand  and  shook  the  right  at 
the  police,  crying  in  a  sort  of  frenzy  till  the 
spouting  blood  choked  him — 

"Bestie!     Bestie!"     ("Beasts!     Beasts!") 
I  can  still  see  him  wiping  the  bloodstained 


150  THE  BOMB 

froth  from  his  lips;  I  went  to  help  him;  but 
all  he  could  gasp  was,  "Weib!  Kinder! 
(Wife,  children!)"  Never  shall  I  forget  the 
despair  in  his  face.  I  supported  him  gently; 
again  and  again  I  wiped  the  blood  from  his 
lips;  every  breath  brought  up  a  flood;  his  poor 
eyes  thanked  me,  though  he  could  not  speak, 
and  soon  his  eyes  closed;  flickered  out,  as 
one  might  say,  and  he  lay  there  still  enough 
in  his  own  blood;  "murdered,"  as  I  said  to 
myself  when  I  laid  the  poor  body  back;  "mur- 
dered!" 

How  I  got  home  I  do  not  know;  but  I  told 
the  whole  story  to  Engel,  and  we  sat  together 
for  hours  with  tears  in  our  eyes,  and  rage  and 
hate  in  our  hearts.  That  night  Engel  came 
with  me  to  the  Lehr  and  Wehr  Verein.  Al- 
ready every  one  knew  what  had  happened; 
the  gravity  of  the  occurrence  weighed  upon 
all  of  us.  One  after  the  other  we  went  through 
the  saloon  and  took  seats  upstairs,  saying 
very  little.  After  we  had  almost  given  them 
up,  Lingg  and  Ida  came  in.  To  my  astonish- 
ment he  moved  briskly,  spoke  as  usual,  called 
the  meeting  together  in  his  ordinary  tone, 
and  asked  who  would  speak;  evidently  he 
knew  nothing  of  the  shooting. 

Every  one  seemed  to  look  at  me;  it  was 
plain  that  they  had  heard  I  was  an  eye-wit- 
ness, so  I  got  up,  and  read  an  account  out  of 


THE  BOMB  151 

a  Chicago  evening  paper.  The  paper  traves- 
tied the  facts.  ''Three  or  four  men  have 
been  killed,  and  fifteen  or  sixteen  dangerously 
wounded  while  resisting  the  police  with 
knives."  One  policeman,  it  appeared,  had  V 
had  a  cut  on  his  arm  sewn  up — one  police-  | 
man,  that  was  the  extent  of  the  resistance.  I 
added  to  the  newspaper  account  a  brief  report 
of  what  had  taken  place.  There  had  been 
passive  resistance;  but  no  active  resistance 
till  men  were  being  clubbed,  then  I  did  see 
one  or  two  knives  drawn;  but  immediately, 
before  they  could  be  used,  the  police  drew 
their  revolvers  and  shot  down  unarmed  men. 
"They  were  foreigners,"  I  said,  "that  was 
why  they  were  shot  down.  We  Germans, 
who  have  done  our  share  in  the  making  of 
this  country,  are  not  to  be  allowed  to  live  in 
peace  in  it.  These  men  were  murdered," 
and  I  took  my  seat,  blazing  with  indignation 
and  rage. 

Raben  was  not  present  at  this  meeting;  in- 
deed, after  his  somewhat  futile  attempt  to 
correct  Lingg  about  the  laws,  he  seldom  put 
in  an  appearance  at  any  of  our  gatherings. 
I  think  I  remember  he  came  once  for  a  few 
minutes.  After  I  sat  down  Lingg  got  up,  and 
made  an  extraordinary  speech.  I  wish  I 
could  report  it  word  for  word  as  he  deUvered 
it,    gravely,    seriously,    to    those    grave    and 


152  THE  BOMB 

serious  men  who  were  being  driven  to  ex- 
tremity. 

"Resistance  to  tyranny  is  a  duty,"  he  be- 
gan. "The  submission  preached  by  Christ 
is  the  one  part  of  His  teaching  which  I  am 
unable  to  accept.  It  may  be  that  I  am  a 
pagan;  but  I  do  not  beHeve  in  turning  the 
other  cheek  to  the  smiter.  I  remember  a 
phrase  of  Tom  Paine,  who  was  the  leading 
spirit  of  the  American  revolution;  he  said  that 
the  English  race  would  never  be  humanized 
till  they  had  learned  in  England  what  war 
was,  till  their  blood  had  been  shed  on  their 
own  hearthstones  by  a  foreign  foe.  I  do  not 
believe  the  insolent  strong  will  ever  refrain 
from  tyranny  till  they  are  frightened  by  the 
results  of  tyranny." 

Professor  Schwab  seemed  to  be  thrown  off 
his  balance  by  Lingg's  words;  every  one  felt 
that  there  was  something  fateful  in  them;  this 
impression  was  so  strong  that  it  seemed  to 
have  shaken  the  professor  out  of  all  self-control. 
He  got  up  and  made  a  rambling  speech  about 
the  impossibility  of  doing  anything  in  a  de- 
mocracy; the  tyrant  was  hydra-headed;  we 
had  overthrown  kings  and  set  up  the  people, 
and  King  Log  was  worse  than  King  Stork,  so 
he  counselled  patience  and  education,  and 
sat  down.  Lingg  would  not  have  this,  and 
took  up  his  speech  again — 


THE  BOMB  153 

"No  one  should  imagine  that  society  is 
able  with  impunity  to  do  wrong;  tout  se  paie 
— every  evil  is  avenged;  though  it  does  look 
as  if  a  large  community  could  commit  wrongs 
which  would  put  an  end  to  the  existence  of  a 
smaller  body.  .  .  . 

"But  surely  the  true  lesson  of  history  is  the 
growth  of  the  individual  as  a  force.  Every 
discovery  of  science,"  he  went  on,  with  a 
thrill  of  triumph  in  his  strong  voice,  "strength- 
ens the  individual.  In  the  past  he  had  one 
man's  life  in  his  hand;  a  single  oppressor 
could  always  be  killed  by  a  single  slave." 
The  whole  meeting  seemed  to  shiver  with 
apprehension.  "But  now  the  individual  has 
the  lives  of  hundreds  in  his  hand,  and  some 
day  soon  he  will  have  the  lives  of  thousands, 
of  a  whole  city,  then  they  will  cease  to  do 
wrong,  the  tyrants,  or  cease  to  exist." 

He  had  not  raised  his  voice  above  the  usual 
tone;  his  speech  was  even  slower  than  usual, 
yet  I  remember  certain  of  his  words  as  if  I 
heard  him  speaking  now.  There  was  an 
extraordinary  passion  in  his  speech,  an  ex- 
traordinary menace  in  his  whole  person,  a 
flame  in  the  deep  eyes.  The  words  of  this 
man  seemed  like  deeds;  frightened  one  like 
deeds. 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  MORNING  or  two  later  I  was  sur- 
-^^^  prised  by  a  little  letter  from  Ida  Miller, 
in  which  she  asked  me  to  come  and  see  her 
some  morning  soon,  "if  possible  on  Wednes- 
day next;  he  will  be  out  then;  I  want  to  con- 
sult wdth  you.  Say  nothing  to  any  one  of 
this." 

What  did  it  mean?  I  asked  myself  in 
wonder.  What  could  Ida  want  to  see  me 
about,  and  why  did  she  want  to  see  me  while 
Lingg  was  away?  I  puzzled  my  brains  in 
vain;  but  the  cares  and  anxieties  of  the  day 
and  hour  absorbed  me,  and  I  forgot  the  letter 
for  the  moment;  I  just  noted  on  my  almanac 
that  I  was  to  call  on  her  the  next  Wednesday 
at  noon. 

In  truth,  weightier  matters  would  have  been 
put  out  of  one's  head  by  the  growing  excite- 
ment in  the  city.  It  really  seemed  to  us  as  if 
the  American  population  had  gone  mad — 
or  were  we  perhaps  misjudging  the  people 
because  of  the  newspapers?  No  one  could 
deny  that  the  newspapers  were  hysterically 
insane;  they  went  on  whipping  up  the  passions 


THE  BOMB  155 

of  their  readers  day  after  day,  hour  after  hour. 
If  one  had  not  known  that  newspapers  in- 
crease their  circulation  in  troubled  times  and 
periods  of  general  excitement,  one  could  not  ^ 
have  understood  the  ape-like  malevolence 
they  displayed.  When  they  were  not  brag-  \ 
ging  and  attributing  the  highest  virtues  to 
themselves,  they  were  running  down  foreigners 
and  foreign  workmen  as  if  we  had  been  of  a 
lower  race.  The  fond  imaginings  of  the 
journalists  were  the  reverse  of  the  truth,  and 
this  fact  contained  in  itself  the  seed  of  danger. 
The  foreigners  were  outnumbered  six  to  one, 
and  disunited  by  differences  of  race  and  re- 
ligion and  language;  but  whatever  original 
political  thinking  was  done  in  the  town  was 
done  by  them.  Intellectually  they  were  the 
siiperiors  of  the  Americans  among  whom  they 
lived.  It  was  brute  force  against  brains,  the 
present  and  the  oppressors  against  the  dis- 
possessed and  the  future.  It  was  the  in- 
tellectual honesty  and  clearsightedness  of  the 
foreigners  which  gave  them  strength  and  made 
them  a  force  to  be  reckoned  with.  Day  by 
day  they  won  adherents  among  the  American 
workmen;  day  by  day  they  grew  in  power  and 
influence,  and  the  understanding  of  this  was 
what  maddened  the  authorities  against  them. 
It  was  Spies  who  really  ended  the  strike, 
and  at  the  same  time  concentrated  public 


156  THE  BOMB 

attention    on    himself,    and    incidentally    on 
Parsons.     He    published    an    article    in    the 
"Arbeiter  Zeitung"  in  German,  written  by  a 
German  workman,   which  contained   almost 
incredible  tales  of  dirt  and  filth  of  the  pork- 
packing  establishments.     "The  workers  were 
always  above  their  soles  in  blood,"  he  wrote, 
"and  this  blood  was  swept  off  the  floors  down 
shutes  and   utilized   in   sausages."     The   ac- 
count was  made  up  of  such  details;  but  it  had 
little  effect  till  Parsons  got  it  translated  into 
English,  and  published  it  in  "The  Alarm." 
I  did  the  translation,  and  I  went  out  for  Par- 
sons immediately  and  interviewed  five  or  six 
more  of  the  strikers,  and  put  in  their  accounts, 
by  way  of  corroboration.     One  fact  which  I 
discovered  was  quoted  everywhere  as  horror's 
crown.     It  had  come  under  mv  notice  in  one 
of  my  visits  to  a  pork-packing  establishment. 
As  their  throats  were  cut  the  pigs  were  plunged 
into  a  bath   of  very  hot   water  in  order  to 
loosen  their  bristles,  so  that  they  could  easily 
be   scraped   off.     Thousands   of  pigs   passed 
through  this  boiling  bath  daily;  long  before 
midday  it  was  fetid,  stinking  with  blood  and 
excrement;  but  no  one  paid  any  attention;  the 
carcasses  fell  into  the  revolting  mixture  and 
were   supposed   to   be   washed   clean   by   the 
contact  with  nameless  filth.     At  any  rate,  that 
was  all  the  washing  they  ever  got;  they  were 


THE  BOMB  157 

hacked  up  at  once  into  flitches,  hams,  sides, 
and  so  forth,  and  thrown  steaming  into  the 
brine  barrels,  ready  for  sale.  But  even  this 
was  not  the  worst  of  the  matter.  Fresh  water 
was  suppHed  each  day;  but  the  baths  them- 
selves were  only  cleaned  out  when  the  ac- 
cumulation of  filth  in  the  bottom  and  round 
the  sides  made  a  clearance  imperatively  neces- 
sary. So  long  as  only  the  food  suffered,  and 
the  health  of  the  workmen,  nothing  was  done. 
The  baths  stank  for  weeks  in  summer,  and 
no  one  paid  any  attention  to  the  fever-breed- 
ing filth.  "Pork-packing  ain't  a  perfumery/ 
store,"  was  the  remark  of  a  millionaire  packer, 
who  thought  the  matter  could  be  disposed  of 
in  that  comforting  way. 

The  American  newspapers  could  not  afford 
to  leave  us  this  field;  they,  too,  sent  out  re- 
porters, who  supplied  them  with  other  details 
of  the  way  food  was  being  prepared,  sickening 
details,  incredibly  revolting,  and  soon  the 
town  was  ringing  with  the  scandal.  The 
better  American  sheets  called  upon  the  Govern- 
ment to  see  that  the  inspectors  did  their  duty 
and  protected  the  consumers;  but  there  is  no 
doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  publication  of  the 
facts  brought  the  strike  to  an  end  quicker  than 
anything  else  could  have  done.  The  em- 
ployers saw  that  it  was  more  profitable  to 
yield  to  the  demands  of  the  strikers  than  lose 


158  THE  BOMB 

their    sales    through    the    exposure    of    their 
filthy,  careless  methods. 

All  this  led  to  a  discussion  in  the  Lehr  and 
Wehr  Verein,  in  which  Lingg  took  the  ground 
that  the  mediaeval  laws  against  the  adultera- 
tion of  food  and  of  many  other  things,  would 
have  to  be  brought  into  force  again.  "There 
is  far  too  much  individual  liberty  in  America," 
was  his  text.  "Professor  Schwab  has  already 
given  us  the  scientific  reasons  for  it;  but  this 
freedom  of  the  individual  must  be  restrained, 
I  when  it  comes  to  giving  us  soda  instead  of 
I  wheat  for  bread,  filth  from  the  floors  instead 
of  wholesome  meat.     We  shall  have  to  restrain 

4 

{the  ruthless  competition  in  a  hundred  ways." 
We  were  all  agreed  that  there  should  be  a 
minimum  wage  established  by  the  State,  an 
eight-hour  day,  and  even  the  right  to  work; 
Lingg  insisted  that  the  workman  who  claimed 
this  right  should  be  paid  by  the  municipality 
or  by  the  State  the  minimum  wage,  what  he 
called tt  Hving  wage.  Government  work,  too, 
he  declared,  should  come  as  little  as  possible 
into  competition  with  work  directed  by  the  in- 
dividual; Government  work  should  be  for  the 
welfare  of  all — the  extension  of  roads,  affores- 
tation of  waste  places,  and  so  on.  I  only 
mention  tliis  to  show  the  man's  innate  modera- 
tion and  practical  wisdom. 
As  soon  as  the  strike  was  over  everyone 


THE  BOMB  159 

seemed  to  wipe  it  from  memory;  nobody  cared 
for  the  three  or  four  people  killed,  or  the  twen- 
ty poor  foreigners  who  had  been  wounded. 

On  the  Wednesday  morning  I  went  to 
Lingg's  rooms.  Ida  met  me  at  the  door;  I 
was  quite  cheerful.  We  talked  for  a  few 
minutes  the  usual  nothings;  but  all  the  time 
there  was  a  constraint  in  her;  she  was  talking, 
as  it  were,  from  the  lips  outwards,  not 
saying  what  she  meant;  at  last  I  faced  the 
music. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  Ida .?"  I  asked.  "  Why 
did  you  send  for  me.^" 

She  looked  at  me  at  first,  and  did  not  answer; 
she  seemed  troubled,  and  wanted  sympathy, 
wanted  me  perhaps  to  divine  the  answer; 
but  though  sympathetic,  I  could  not  guess  her 
secret.  I  pressed  her  to  tell  me  what  was  the 
matter. 

"Our  anxieties  are  always  greatest,"  I 
said,  *'when  we  do  not  talk  about  them. 
Once  talked  about  they  grow  less.  Tell  me 
what  it  is." 

"There  is  nothing  certain,"  she  said;  "that 
is,  I  cannot  convince  you  that  there  is  any 
imminent  danger;  but  there  is.  You  know 
Louis  is  against  marriage;  talks  of  it  as  an 
invention  of  the  priesthood,  a  means  of  filling 
their  pockets,  like  all  the  other  sacraments. 
The  other  night  when  we  came  home  after 


160  THE  BOMB 

your  account  of  the  shooting,  Louis  told  me 
that  in  the  present  state  of  things  he  was 
wrong;  he  thought  we  ought  to  get  married 
at  once." 

She  looked  at  me  with  appealing  eyes;  her 
lips  were  trembling;  I  saw  she  was  over- 
wrought; I  almost  smiled;  it  did  not  appear 
to  me  to  be  very  serious  one  way  or  the  other; 
but  she  went  on — 

'*It  frightened  me;  he  has  not  altered  his 
opinions,  nor  changed  in  any  way;  he  was 
thinking  of  me,  and  wants  us  to  be  married 
at  once.  Don't  you  understand?  At  once! 
That  is  because  he  feels  that  soon  he  will  be 
no  longer  here.  Oh,  Rudolph,  I'm  frightened 
half  to  death;  I  can't  sleep  for  fear,"  and  the 
sweet  face  quivered  pitifully. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  I  cried.  But  even 
while  I  spoke  I  began  to  fear  she  was  right. 
Of  course  I  tried  to  cheer  her  up;  tried  to 
show  her  that  her  fears  were  exaggerated; 
but  I  did  not  convince  her,  and  bit  by  bit  her 
fears  infected  me,  began  to  give  shape  and 
meaning  to  my  own  vague  dread. 

"Perhaps,"  I  said  to  myself,  "Lingg's  words 
seem  like  deeds,  have  the  weight  of  deeds, 
because  they  are  closely  related  to  deeds, 
because  he  means  to  make  good.  That 
would  explain  everything";  and  as  the  con- 
viction struck  me,  I  shivered,  and  we  looked 


THE  BOMB  161 

at  each  other,  a  nameless  fear  in  both  our 
minds. 

Suddenly,  as  if  unable  to  control  herself 
any  longer,  or  perhaps  excited  by  my  sympa- 
thy, she  burst  out,  her  long  white  hands  ac- 
centuating her  words — 

"Oh,  if  you  knew  how  I  love  him,  and  how 
happy  I've  been  in  his  love.  It's  nothing  to 
say  'I  am  his.'  I  am  part  of  him;  I  feel  as 
he  feels,  think  as  he  thinks;  he  has  given  me 
eyes  to  see  with,  and  courage  to  live  or  die 
with  him;  but  not  without  him.  If  you  knew 
where  I  was  when  he  met  me.  Ah,  what  a 
man!  I  had  been  fooled  and  deserted,  and 
didn't  care  what  became  of  me,  and  he  came, 
and  oh,  at  first  I  scarcely  dared  hope  for  his 
love,  and  he  gave  like  a  king,  without  count- 
ing.    How  kind  he  is  and  strong.  .  .  . 

"You  know  men  and  women  are  much 
alike;  we  women  at  any  rate  all  pretend  not 
to  feel  any  sex-attraction  save  towards  the 
man  we  love;  but  in  reality  we  often  feel  it. 
We  love  a  man  for  instance  who  is  quick  and 
passionate  and  virile,  but  when  we  meet  a 
man  who  is  slow  and  strong  and  domineering 
our  soft  flesh  feels  the  force  in  him,  and  we 
cannot  restrain  our  liking.  The  flesh  is 
faithless  in  woman  as  in  man;  though  we 
control  it  better.  But  since  I  met  Lingg  my 
flesh  even  has  been  faithful  to  him.    I  desire 


162  THE   BOMB 

nothing  but  him,  my  body  is  as  loyal  to  him 
as  my  soul.  He  is  my  soul,  the  vital  principle 
of  me.    I  cannot  live  without  him.    I  will  not. . . 

"I  am  so  happy,  I  hate  to  give  it  all  up.  I 
know  it's  vile  and  base  of  me :  I  ought  to  think 
of  those  others  who  suffer  while  we  enjoy; 
but  love  is  so  sweet,  and  we  are  so  young;  we 
might  have  each  other  a  little  longer,  don't 
you  think?  Or  is  that  very  selfish  of  me?" 
And  the  luminous,  lovely,  wet  eyes  appealed 
to  me.  I  had  never  been  so  shaken.  I 
could  not  say,  "  You  are  exaggerating."  I  could 
frame  the  words,  but  could  not  utter  them. 
She  was  so  sincere  and  so  certain  that  she 
lifted  me  to  truth.  I  could  only  look  in  her 
face  with  unshed  tears,  and  nod  my  head.  At 
times  life  is  appalling — more  tragic  than  any 
imagining. 

"We  must  trust  him,"  I  said  at  last.  Out 
of  my  sympathy  with  her  the  words  came, 
and  at  once  they  seemed  to  help  her. 

"Yes,  yes,"  she  cried,  "he  knows  how  a 
woman  loves  love;  he  will  not  be  hard  on  me, 
but  he  is  very  hard  on  himself,"  she  added 
with  trembling  lips,  "and  that  is  the  same 
thing." 

"Life  is  not  gay  for  any  of  us,"  was  all  my 
wisdom  found;  "you  are  rarely  lucky  ever  to 
have  found  such  complete  love,  such  perfect 
happiness." 


THE  BOMB  163 

Again  I  had  struck  the  right  note  by  chance. 
She  nodded  her  head,  and  her  eyes  cleared. 

"I  wish  I  could  have  one  day,"  I  went  on, 
"like  the  months  you  have  had." 

*'With  Elsie?"  she  asked,  smiling,  and  as  I 
was  about  to  say  "Yes,"  Lingg  came  into  the 
room.  He  shook  hands  with  me,  showing 
no  trace  in  his  manner  of  astonishment,  em- 
barrassment, or  misgiving. 

"It  is  good  to  see  you,"  he  said  simply  as 
he  went  over  to  the  table,  and  put  down  some 
books  that  he  had  brought  in.  "Did  Ida 
send  for  you.?"  and  his  eyes  probed  mine  a 
moment.  "I  mean,"  he  went  on  more  light- 
ly, "there  is  a  sort  of  coincidence  in  the  matter, 
for  I  wanted  to  see  you  to-day.  It  is  such  a 
fine  day,  and  I  have  been  working  very  hard. 
Why  not  let  us  go  out  and  have  a  holiday? 
Take  something  to  eat  with  us,  German  fashion, 
sausages,  beer,  bread,  and  a  potato  salad,  echt 
Deutsche  eh  ?  and  eat  in  a  boat  on  the  lake." 

He  seemed  in  a  radiant  good-humour, 
strangely  light-hearted.  Looking  at  him,  all 
my  fears  vanished,  and  I  immediately  backed 
up  the  project  with  all  my  heart.  I,  too,  had 
been  over- working,  and  wanted  a  holiday;  so 
we  began  to  get  the  things  together,  packing 
up  the  eatables  in  a  little  hamper.  Lingg 
allowed  me  to  carry  the  basket,  I  noticed, 
though  it  was  his  usual  custom  to  carry  every- 


164  THE  BOMB 

thing  himself.  He  would  walk  apart  from 
us,  too,  though  he  usually  walked  between 
us.  Why  do  I  remember  all  these  things  so 
clearly,  though  I  do  not  think  I  remarked  any 
of  them  at  the  moment? 

We  went  down  to  the  lake  shore  and  en- 
gaged a  row-boat,  and  the  man  who  hired 
us  the  boat  wanted  to  come  with  us,  or  to 
send  a  boy  with  us;  but  Lingg  would  not  hear 
of  it. 

"Give  us  a  good  safe  boat,"  he  said,  "your 
broadest,  safest  boat;  put  in  a  good  life- belt, 
too,  because  we  are  unused  to  the  water,  and 
we  want  to  enjoy  ourselves  without  being 
afraid  of  capsizing." 

The  American  laughed  at  us,  thinking  we 
were  silly  Dutchmen,  and  gave  us  the  boat 
we  asked  for,  a  broad,  heavy  barge  of  a  thing. 
Lingg  told  Ida  to  go  and  sit  in  the  stern-sheets 
and  steer,  and  then  put  me  on  the  after-thwart 
to  row  a  pair  of  sculls,  and  went  with  a  pair 
of  sculls  himself  into  the  bow.  He  left  a 
thwart  between  us  unoccupied.  That,  too, 
I  remember  distinctly,  though  at  the  time  I 
did  not  notice  it. 

When  we  pushed  off  and  began  to  row,  I 
thought  that  Lingg  meant  to  get  half  a  mile 
or  so  out,  perhaps  a  mile,  and  then  eat;  but 
he  rowed  on  steadily.  At  last,  I  turned 
round  to  him — 


THE  BOMB  165 

"Look  here,  Lingg,  I  want  something  to 
eat.     When  are  we  to  have  dinner?" 

He  simply  smiled. 

"When  we  can  no  longer  see  the  city," 
and  bent  to  the  oars  again.  We  must  have 
rowed  for  two  hours  and  a  half,  must  have 
made  seven  or  eight  miles  out  into  the  lake, 
before  I  put  down  the  sculls  and  said — 

"I  say,  Lingg,  do  you  want  to  row  across 
the  Lake.?  Or  do  you  call  this  pleasure  to 
work  us  like  slaves,  and  give  us  nothing  to 
eat.?" 

At  once  he  came  back  to  me  on  the  after- 
thwart,  and  we  had  our  meal,  and  I  tried  to 
make  merry;  but  Lingg  was  always  rather 
silent,  and  to-day  Ida  was  silent,  too,  and 
nervous;  she  upset  things,  and  was  evidently 
overwrought.  When  we  had  finished  the 
simple  meal,  and  put  away  the  things,  I  pro- 
posed to  row  back,  but  Lingg  said  "No," 
and  then  got  up  on  the  after-thwart  and  stood 
there  looking  towards  Chicago.  When  he 
stepped  down  again  he  said— 

"Not  a  thing  to  be  seen  except  this";  and 
he  took  a  sort  of  boy's  catapult  out  of  his 
pocket. 

"What  on  earth's  that  for?"  I  asked. 

"To  try  this,"  he  answered,  and  he  took  a 
little  ball  of  cotton-wool  out  of  his  trousers 
pocket,   and,   stripping  the   cotton  oflf,   dis- 


166  THE  BOaiB 

covered  a  round  ball,  about  the  size  of  a  wal- 
nut. 

"What  may  that  be?"  I  asked  laughingly; 
but  as  I  laughed  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  Ida's 
face,  and  again  the  fear  came  back,  for  she 
was  leaning  forward  staring  at  Lingg  with 
parted  lips,  and  all  her  soul  in  her  wide  eyes. 
He  said — 

"That  is  a  bomb,  a  small  bomb,  which  I 
am  going  to  try." 

"Good  God!"  I  exclaimed,  astounded  so 
that  I  could  not  think  or  feel. 

"I  want  the  catapult,"  he  went  on,  "to 
throw  it  some  distance  from  the  boat,  because 
I  think  that  if  I  threw  it  with  my  hand  it  might 
wreck  the  boat,  and  we  might  have  to  try  to 
swim  back  to  shore.  Whereas,  this  catapult 
will  throw  it  twice  as  far  as  I  could,  and  we 
shall  see  the  results  of  it,  and  be  able  to  gauge 
them  pretty  accurately." 

I  do  not  suppose  I  am  more  of  a  coward 
than  other  men;  but  his  quiet  words  terrified 
me.  My  heart  was  in  my  mouth,  I  could  not 
breathe  freely,  and  my  hands  were  cold  and 
wet.     I  said — 

"Do  you  mean  it,  Lingg .^" 

The  inscrutable  eyes  rested  on  me,  searched 
me,  judged  me,  and  against  their  condemna- 
tion my  pluck  seemed  to  come  back  to  me, 
and  my  blood  began  to  flow  again.     That  was 


THE  BOMB  167 

the  terrible  thing  about  Louis  Lingg:  he  judged 
you  by  what  there  was  in  you;  he  Hked  you, 
or  admired  you,  for  the  qualities  you  possessed, 
and  absolutely  refused  to  attribute  to  you 
qualities  which  you  did  not  possess.  To 
know  him  was  a  perpetual  tonic.  I  would 
not  let  him  see  I  was  afraid,  I'd  have  died 
sooner. 

I  am  honestly  trying  to  tell  exactly  what 
went  on  in  me,  because  in  comparison  with 
Lingg  I  look  upon  myself  as  merely  an  ordi- 
nary man,  and  if  I  did  things  that  ordinary 
men  do  not  do  and  cannot  do,  it  is  because 
of  Lingg's  influence  on  me. 

As  the  spirit  came  back  to  me,  and  the 
blood  rushed  through  my  veins  in  hot  waves, 
I  could  see  that  his  eyes  were  kindlier;  they 
rested  on  me  with  approval,  and  I  was  in- 
tensely proud  and  lifted  up  in  soul  because 
of  it. 

** Shall  we  try  the  bomb,"  he  said,  "or  are 
you  frightened  that  we  may  have  to  swim.?" 

"I  will  trust  your  judgment,"  I  said  care- 
lessly. "I  expect  you  know  about  what  it 
will  do.     But  when  did  you  make  it .?" 

"I  began  working  a  year  ago,"  he  said, 
"when  the  police  began  to  use  their  clubs, 
and  I  have  gone  on  ever  since."  In  a  flash 
I  remembered  the  chemistry  books,  and  all 
was  plain  to  me. 


168  THE  BOMB 

"I  had  no  business  to  bring  you  with  us," 
be  said,  turning  to  Ida.  "It  will  be  too  much 
for  your  nerves?"  he  questioned  gently. 

She  looked  at  him  with  all  her  love  in  her 
shining  eyes,  and  shook  her  head. 

**I  have  known  about  it  for  months  past," 
she  said — "months.  You  made  it  two  months 
ago  in  your  little  shop  by  the  river." 

And  these  two  strange  beings  both  smiled. 
The  next  moment  Lingg  had  put  the  bullet 
in  the  catapult,  and  drawn  the  india-rubber 
out  to  arm's  length  and  let  go.  The  eyes 
followed  the  black  bullet  in  its  long  curve 
through  the  air.  As  it  reached  the  water 
there  was  a  tremendous  report,  a  tremendous 
shock;  the  water  went  up  in  a  sort  of  spout, 
and  even  at  thirty  or  forty  yards  distance  the 
boat  rocked  and  almost  capsized.  For  min- 
utes afterwards  I  could  not  hear.  I  began 
to  be  afraid  I  was  permanently  deaf.  How 
could  so  small  a  thing  have  such  enormous 
force?  The  first  thing  I  heard  was  Lingg 
saying— 

"If  we  had  been  standing  up  we  should 
have  been  thrown  down;  as  it  was  I  had  to 
hold  on  to  the  side  of  the  boat." 

"Surely,"  I  said,  "the  noise  will  have  been 
heard  in  the  town  ?" 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Lingg,  "the  explosion  is 
rapid,  the  blow  very  quick,  so  that  it  does 


THE  BOMB  169 

not  carry  so  far  as  the  slower  pushing 
blow  of  powder;  the  high  explosive  gives  a 
greater  shock  near  at  hand;  but  the  blow 
does  not  spread  over  nearly  so  large  an 
area." 

"It  was  dynamite,  wasn't  it?"  I  asked, 
after  a  little  reflection,  when  the  deafness 
was  beginning  to  wear  off. 

"No,"  Lingg  answered;  "a  much  more 
powerful  agent." 

"Really!"  I  exclaimed.  "I  thought  dyna- 
mite about  the  strongest." 

"Oh,  no,"  Lingg  replied,  "dynamite  is 
nothing  but  nitro-glycerine  mixed  with  Kie- 
selguhr,  in  order  to  allow  it  to  be  handled 
easily;  nitro-glycerine  mixed  with  nitro-cotton 
is  called  blasting  gelatine,  and  is  much  stronger 
than  dynamite.  But  the  percussion  of  a 
small  quantity  of  fulminate  of  mercury  em- 
bedded in  nitro-glycerine  produces  an  enor- 
mously greater  effect  than  the  explosion  of 
either  substance  by  itself.  And  there  are 
more  powerful  explosives  than  nitro-glycerine. 
My  little  bomb,"  he  went  on,  as  if  talking  to 
himself,  "is  as  powerful  as  fifty  times  its 
weight  of  dynamite." 

"Good  God!"  I  exclaimed;  "but  what  was 
it  made  of.?" 

"All  high  explosives,"  he  said,  "contain 
a  lot  of  oxygen  and  some  nitrogen  .  .  .  but  do 


170  THE  BOMB 

let's  talk  of  something  else,"  he  broke  oflf, 
**it's  too  long  a  story.  ..." 
Suddenly  Ida  said  to  Lingg — 
"I  want  to  throw  the  first  bomb,  Louis." 
He   shook   his   head.     "It's   not   woman's 
work,"  he  said,  "and  I  still  hope  there  will  be 
no  bomb-throwing  needed." 

Now  what  prompted  me  to  speak,  I  cannot 
tell ;  I  suppose  it  was  vanity,  or  rather  a  desire 
to  gain  Louis  Lingg's  approval.  I  suddenly 
heard  myself  saying — 

"Let  me  throw  the  first  bomb." 
Lingg  looked  at  me,  and  again  my  blood 
warmed  under  the  kindly  approval  of  his  gaze. 
"It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  do,"  he  said.  "I 
am  sure  a  woman  would  break  down  under 
it;  I  am  afraid  you  would  break  down  too, 
Rudolph." 

"But  you.?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,"  he  replied  carelessly,  "I  think  I 
have  always  known  that  I  was  born  to  do 
something  of  this  sort.  There  is  a  passage 
in  the  Bible  which  struck  me  when  I  first 
heard  it  as  a  boy,  which  has  always  lived  with 
me.  I  did  not  read  much  of  the  Bible,  and 
I  did  not  pay  much  attention  to  what  I  did 
read.  The  Old  Testament  seemed  to  me 
poor  stuff,  and  only  the  Gospels  moved  me 
much;  but  that  word  has  always  lived 
with  me.      It  is  something  like  this:      'It  is 


THE  BOMB  171 

expedient  that  one  man  should  die  for  the 
people   .  .  .  .' 

"We  Germans  dream  too  much,  and  think 
too  much;  for  a  generation  or  two  we  should 
act.  We  are  far  ahead  of  the  rest  of  the 
world  as  thinkers;  it  now  remains  for  us  to 
realize  our  thoughts  and  to  show  the  rest  of 
the  world  that  in  deeds,  too,  we  can  surpass 
them. 

"I  had  a  dreadful  childhood;  perhaps  I 
will  tell  you  about  it  some  day,"  he  went  on. 
''They  heat  the  steel  in  the  furnace  and  then 
plunge  it  in  icewater  in  order  to  make  a 
sword-blade.  I  think  I  was  subjected  to 
extremes  of  pain  and  misery — for  some  pur- 
pose," he  added  the  last  words  slowly.  In 
spite  of  its  clearness,  his  mind  just  touched 
mysticism.  He  felt  a  purpose  in  things — 
his  star  and  fate  one  with  the  whole.  He 
seemed  lost  in  thought  for  a  moment,  and  then 
resumed  in  his  accustomed  clear  way — 

"The  only  good  thing  in  your  offer,  and  it 
is  a  great  offer,"  he  smiled  at  me,  "is  that  it 
would  multiply  the  effect  of  us  both  tenfold. 
I  could  save  you,  too,  the  first  person  to 
throw  a  bomb,  and  reserve  myself  for  the 
second  when  there  will  be  no  saving.  You 
see,  one  bomb  is  an  accident;  two  show  se- 
quence, purpose;  suggest  a  third  and  fourth 
— are    terrifying.     I    know    the    fat   trades- 


172  THE  BOMB 

men;  they'll  hide  under  the  beds  with  fear." 
Again  the  man  terrified  me,  again  I  heard 
myself  talking,  assenting,  felt  myself  grinning; 
but  my  senses  were  numbed,  paralysed,  by 
the  awiful  reality  of  the  talk,  or  the  unreality 
of  it,  whichever  you  please;  my  thinking  and 
feeling  faculties  all  seemed  dead;  the  shock 
had  been  too  great  for  me.  I  moved  as  in  a 
dream;  in  a  dream,  when  he  went  to  his 
thwart  and  took  up  the  sculls,  I  went  to  mine 
and  took  up  the  sculls  too,  like  an  automaton, 
and  in  almost  complete  silence  we  rowed  back 
to  Chicago.  .  .  . 

The  short  spring  day  was  over,  the  sun 
went  down  before  we  got  back;  night  came 
with  her  shadows,  her  merciful,  shrouding 
shadows,  and  hid  us  as  we  rowed  up  to  the 
wharf.  As  the  Yankee  received  the  money, 
something  in  his  quaint,  sharp  accent  recalled 
me  to  reality;  but  I  had  no  wish  to  talk,  I  was 
drained  of  emotions,  and  I  accompanied  the 
others  home  in  a  sort  of  waking  dream.  At 
the  door  Lingg  sent  Ida  upstairs,  and  turned 
to  walk  with  me  towards  my  rooms. 

"Put  all  this  out  of  your  head,"  he  said  to 
me;  "it  has  overstrained  you.  Perhaps  the 
troubles  will  settle  down,  perhaps  the  police 
will  come  to  some  sense  of  humanity.  I  hope 
so.  In  any  case,  I  do  not  take  your  offer 
seriously.    I  need  not  say  I  trust  you;  but  it 


THE  BOMB  173 

is  not  well  to  try  to  do  more  than  one  can 
do,"  and  he  smiled  at  me  with  loving-kindness 
in  the  deep  eyes.  From  that  moment  we 
were  intimates.  I  felt  that  in  some  strange 
way  he  knew  my  weakness  as  well  as  I  knew 
it,  and  would  never  ask  me  for  more  than  I 
could  give,  and  this  filled  me  with  loving 
gratitude  to  him;  but  I  felt  also  that  same 
wild  exhilaration  in  the  heart  of  me,  knowing 
well  that  I  was  always  willing  to  give  more 
than  he  asked,  more  than  he  expected. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ALL  these  experiences  in  the  strikes  and 
with  Lingg  had  not  only  taken  me 
away  from  Elsie,  prevented  me  spending 
much  time  with  her,  but  they  had  alienated 
me  from  her  to  a  certain  extent.  We  had 
gone  on  meeting  two  or  three  times  a  week, 
but  I  was  always  occupied  with  the  events  of 
the  social  war,  with  the  emotions  and  sensa- 
tions which  the  wild  struggle  called  to  life  in 
me,  and  with  the  demands  the  incidents  made 
upon  my  time  and  thought.  Before  this 
period  came  to  an  end,  I  noticed  that  my  posi- 
tion with  Elsie  had  improved.  As  I  seemed 
to  draw  away  from  her  and  to  be  a  little  less 
her  slave,  she  became  kinder  to  me,  less  im- 
perious, and  as  soon  as  I  noticed  this  a  tinge 
of  contempt  mingled  with  my  love  for  her. 
Was  she  indeed  like  all  the  other  girls  whom  I 
had  read  of  who  ran  away  if  you  ran  after 
them,  and  who  ran  after  you  if  you  ran  away  ? 
I  was  not  like  that,  I  reflected;  I  desired  her 
above  everything  in  the  world;  but  then  the 
thought  would  not  be  denied  that  when  she 
was  imperious  and  difficult  she  attracted  me 
most  intensely.     There  is  not  a  pin  to  choose 


THE  BOMB  175 

between  us,  I  reluctantly  admitted;  human 
nature  in  man  or  woman  is  not  differenced 
widely. 

But  the  fact  that  self-possession,  self-mastery 
did  me  good  in  Elsie's  eyes  and  strengthened 
my  influence  over  her  enormously,  was  per- 
haps the  real  gain  in  the  somewhat  casual  in- 
tercourse of  these  few  weeks.  The  last  time 
I  had  seen  her  she  had  flushed  with  pleasure 
when  we  met,  and  when  we  parted  she  kissed 
and  clung  to  me  as  if  she  wished  to  show  her 
passion.  "You  will  come  to-morrow,  won't 
you.P"  she  asked.  This  called  to  life  a  sort 
of  mocking  contrary  devil  in  me,  and  I  ans- 
wered with  careless  courtesy — 

"I  will  come  on  Saturday  and  take  you  for 
a  walk — if  I  possibly  can,"  I  added. 

"I  will  wait  in  and  be  ready,"  she  replied 
quickly. 

That  Saturday  afternoon  was  bright  and 
hot,  I  remember,  and  our  steps  turned  natural- 
ly towards  the  lake  shore,  for  the  asphalt 
was  soft,  and  the  smell  of  it  overpowering. 
One  would  almost  have  done  anything  to 
avoid  those  hot  shafts  of  light  reflected  from 
the  pavement  and  buildings;  they  blinded 
one.  I  did  not  wonder  that  Elsie  said  pet- 
tishly— 

"I  hate  walking.  To-day  is  the  day  for 
a  drive." 


176  THE  BOMB 

I  had  intended  merely  to  go  into  the  park 
and  lie  about;  but  the  moment  she  said  this  I 
thought  of  the  boat,  and  it  gave  a  purpose  to 
me. 

"I  am  going  to  take  you  for  something 
better  than  a  drive,"  I  said. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked,  her  eyes  sparkling. 

"I  will  tell  you  within  quarter  of  an  hour," 
I  said,  and  she  walked  on  towards  the  boating 
place,  chattering  of  all  she  had  done  in  the 
past  fortnight.  She  was  delighted,  it  appeared, 
for  the  manager  had  made  much  of  her,  was 
pleased  with  her  work,  and  had  given  her  a 
rise  in  wages.  I  was  a  little  jealous,  I  re- 
member, vaguely  jealous  though  pleased  for 
her  sake  that  she  had  got  a  better  position. 
The  unworthy  spirit  soon  vanished,  however, 
for  her  provocative,  saucy  beauty  had  a 
warmth  of  tenderness  about  it  that  thrilled 
me  with  delight,  bathed  my  heart  in  joy,  and 
banished  all  thought  of  rivalry. 

In  a  few  minutes  we  came  to  the  landing- 
stage,  and  before  the  Yankee  had  time  to  ask 
me  what  I  wanted,  Elsie  cried  out  in  wild 
excitement — 

*'It's  just  lovely  of  you!  I'd  like  a  row  on 
the  cool  water  better  than  anything." 

"Let  us  have  a  broad,  safe  boat,"  I  said, 
and  the  Yankee  picked  us  out  a  tub  of  a  thing. 

"You'll  find  it  hard  rowing  in  that,  if  you 


THE  BOMB  177 

want  to  go  far,"  was  his  remark,  "though  it 
ain't  so  hot  on  the  water  as  on  land,  by  a  long 
way;  but  the  boat's  safe  as  a  barge." 

I  did  not  intend  to  pull  as  far  as  I  had  pulled 
with  Lingg,  so  I  took  the  boat  he  offered  me, 
and  after  settling  Elsie  in  the  stern-sheets 
and  showing  her  how  to  use  the  steering  lines, 
I  rowed  out  into  the  lake  for  half  an  hour  or 
so,  and  then  went  and  threw  myself  in  the 
bottom  of  the  boat  at  her  feet.  She  looked 
at  me  half  shyly,  with  love's  confession  in 
the  eyes  that  hardly  dare  to  meet  mine. 

''Isn't  it  rather  strange.^"  she  said  to  me. 
"A  month  ago  I  made  up  my  mind  again  and 
again  not  to  meet  you:  said  I  wouldn't:  told 
you  I  wouldn't.  And  when  I  was  away  by 
myself  I  used  to  begin  by  saying,  'I  don't 
think  we  ought  to  go  on  meeting;  it's  not 
right,  and  I'm  not  going  to,  anyway.'  But 
*it's  not  right'  simply  meant,  I  think,  'I  don't 
want  to  very  much,'  for  now  when  you  haven't 
come  once  or  twice  I  have  just  wanted  you 
ever  so  bad;  now,  don't  be  conceited,  or  I'll 
not  tell  you  another  thing." 

Naturally  at  this  avowal  I  slipped  my  arm 
round  her  hips  and  looked  up  in  her  face. 
Her  eyes  still  avoided  mine.  At  first  Elsie 
liked  me,  I  think;  but  love  came  with  com- 
panionship, and  she  was  now  as  much  in 
love  as  I  was,  lost  in  the  transfiguring  glamour. 


178  THE  BOMB 

"We  are  alone  here,  aren't  we.  Boy,"  she 
went  on,  "more  alone  than  in  a  room  or  any- 
where; just  our  two  selves  between  sky  and 
sea." 

I  agreed  with  her,  and  she  went  back  to 
her  original  theme. 

"I  didn't  want  to  go  on  meeting  you,  be- 
cause I  thought  I  did  not  care  really,  and  that 
you  did  care,  and  now  it  seems  as  if  I  had 
grown  to  care  more,  and  so,  just  as  I  used  to 
reason  against  you,  now  I  am  always  reason- 
ing for  you.  Isn't  that  strange?"  And  the 
divine  eyes  lifted  shyly  for  a  moment. 

I  put  my  face  up  to  her  and  her  lips  drooped 
on  mine:  her  tender  abandonment  was  simply 
adorable. 

"Love  calls  forth  love,  Elsie,"  I  said,  "as 
*deep  calls  unto  deep.'" 

"Besides,"  she  began,  with  a  quick  change 
of  mood,  "you  have  altered  a  great  deal,  you 
know.  When  we  first  met  you  were,  oh,  so 
German;  you  spoke  American  comically,  and 
you  had  all  sorts  of  little  German  ways,  and 
now  you  speak  American  as  well  as  I  do. 
You  seemed  a  little  soft  then,  and  very — sen- 
timental; now  you  are  stronger,  more  res- 
olute. .  .  . 

"You  are  very  well  educated,  aren't  you? 
Much  better  even  than  our  college  boys. 
You  ought  to  get  on,  you  know,"  and  she 


THE  BOMB  179 

looked  quite  excited  and  eager;  but  another 
wave  of  reflection  swept  over  her,  and  her  lips 
drooped  pathetically. 

"But  to  get  on  far  will  take  ten  or  twelve 
years,  and  what  shall  I  look  like  in  ten  years  ? 
I  shall  be  an  old  hag.  Fancy  me  twenty-nine! 
and  if  I  married  you  now,  you'd  never  get 
through.  I'd  keep  you  poor.  Oh,  I'm  a- 
fraid,  I'm  afraid!  .  .  . 

''You  mustn't,  Boy!  Please  don't  or  I'll 
get  cross,"  she  broke  in,  for  I  had  begun 
kissing  her  arm  with  little  slow  kisses  which 
left  flushes  like  roseleaves  on  the  exquisite 
skin;  but  in  return  for  my  imploring  look 
she  bent  down  and  kissed  me,  as  she  alone 
could  kiss. 

Then  we  began  talking  of  this  and  that, 
forming  little  plans  of  what  might  be,  plans 
which  would  bring  us  together.  I  used  to 
be  the  castle-builder;  but  lately  Elsie  had 
begun  to  build  castles,  too,  or  rather,  cosy 
little  houses,  which  seemed  nearer  than  my 
castles,  and  certainly  more  enticing.  But 
now  I  talked  with  some  certainty  of  a  secure 
post  on  an  American  paper,  for  Wilson,  the 
editor  of  the  *'Post,"  was  wilKng  to  give  me 
a  steady  berth,  where  I  could  reckon  on  earn- 
ing at  least  eighty  dollars  a  month,  and  that 
was  surely  enough  for  all  of  us;  but  she  shook 
her  prudent  little  head,  till  I  drew  her  down 


180  THE  BOMB 

from  her  seat  into  my  arms,  and  there  we  sat 
with  our  arms  round  each  other  and  lips  given 
to  lips.  After  a  while  she  drew  herself  away 
again. 

"Oh,  we  ought  not  to  meet,"  she  said; 
"we  ought  not  to  meet  like  this.  You  smile, 
you  bad  boy,  because  I'm  always  saying  that; 
but  I  mean  it  this  time.  When  I  said  it  be- 
fore, we  didn't  care  really ;  but  now  it's  different. 
Oh,  I  know.  .  .  .  Each  time  we  meet,  you  want 
me  more,  and  as  you  want  me  more  and  more, 
I  find  it  harder  to  refuse  and  deny  myself  to 
you.  Every  time,  too,  the  joy  of  yielding 
tempts  me  more  and  more,  and  I'm  beginning 
to  get  afraid  of  myself.  If  we  go  on  meeting 
and  kissing,  some  day  I'll  yield;  it's  human 
nature,  Boy,  or  girl's  nature,  and  then  I'd 
just  hate  myself  and  you,  too;  I'd  kill  myself, 
I  think.  I  hate  giving  way,  bit  by  bit,  out  of 
weakness,  and  doing  something  I  don't  want 
to  do;  it  humiliates  me!" 

All  this  time  I  let  her  talk,  and  went  on 
kissing  and  caressing  her.  Something  of 
Lingg's  steady  purpose  had  got  into  me. 
Speech  is  often  a  veil  of  the  soul,  and  my 
patience  and  persistent  desire  drew  us  to- 
gether more  surely  than  any  words.  Day  by 
day  I  was  more  masterful,  and  Elsie  was  more 
yielding  than  she  had  been,  nearer  to  com- 
plete self-surrender. 


THE  BOMB  181 

I  simply  went  on  kissing  her,  therefore,  till 
of  a  sudden  again  she  drew  away  resolutely, 
and  threw  her  little  head  back  and  took  a  long 
breath. 

"Oh,  you  bad  boy!  Why  do  you  tempt 
me?" 

"You  don't  care  for  me  much,"  I  said, 
looking  in  her  eyes  with  dumb  appeal,  "so 
you  needn't  talk  of  temptation;  you  don't 
care  enough  for  me  to  yield  a  little  bit." 

"More  than  you  think.  Boy,"  she  said, 
giving  herself  to  me  for  a  moment  in  a  look; 
but  the  next  instant  she  got  up,  nevertheless, 
with  proud  resolution,  shook  her  skirts  out 
with  a  rueful  pout  at  the  way  the  muslin  was 
crushed  and  tumbled,  and  sat  down  again  in 
the  stern-sheets. 

I  let  her  go.  After  all,  what  right  had  I  to 
tempt  her,  or  to  go  on  caressing  her?  What 
right  ?  At  any  time  Lingg  might  call  on  me, 
and  I  felt  sure  I  should  respond,  and  all  hope 
of  love  and  a  happy  life  with  Elsie  were  blotted 
out  in  one  black  gulf  of  fear.  No,  I  would 
restrain  myself;  and  I  did  on  that  occasion, 
though  it  cost  blood. 

I  had  already  noticed  that  every  caress, 
innocent  though  they  were  for  the  most  part, 
was  a  permanent  advance.  She  had  let  me 
catch  a  glimpse  of  her  limbs  once;  she  could 
not  refuse  me  the  next  time.     In  truth,  it  was 


182  THE  BOIVIB 

harder  and  harder  for  her  to  refuse  me  any- 
thing, for  love  was  on  her,  too,  with  its  im- 
perious desire.  In  spite  of  my  determination 
not  to  go  any  further,  certainly  not  to  com- 
promise her  in  any  way,  we  seemed  to  be  on 
a  fatal  slope;  every  little  movement  took  us 
further  down,  and  it  was  impossible  to  go 
back.  I  do  not  know  whether  Elsie  realized 
this  as  clearly  as  I  did;  sometimes  now  I  am 
inclined  to  believe  that  she  understood  even 
better  than  I  whither  the  road  led. 

But  that  day,  I  am  glad  to  think,  I  put  the 
bridle  on  myself  resolutely,  and  yielded  no 
whit  to  the  incessant  tormenting  desire.  And 
if  Elsie  had  rewarded  me  for  my  self-restraint 
by  showing  me  increased  tenderness,  perhaps 
I  should  have  persevered  in  the  narrow,  diffi- 
cult way.  But  she  did  not;  she  seemed  to 
think  I  had  taken  offence  at  her  resolution, 
so  she  sulked  a  little  in  reply  to  my  unwonted 
coldness,  and  that  I  simply  could  not  stand, 
so  I  kissed  her  into  a  good  humour  and  thanked 
goodness  that  the  April  sun  had  almost  run 
his  short  course,  and  compelled  us  to  seek 
the  shore. 

On  our  way  to  the  boarding-house,  Elsie 
repented  of  her  coolness,  and  was  delightful 
to  me;  kissing  her  as  we  parted,  I  could  only 
promise  to  visit  her  as  usual,  and  give  her 
more  time  than  I  had  lately  been  able  to  afford. 


THE  BOMB  183 

It  looked  as  if  my  good  resolutions  were  likely 
to  be  put  to  a  severe  test. 

When  I  was  alone  and  had  time  for  cool 
reflection,  I  took  myself  earnestly  to  task. 
God  knows  I  did  not  wish  to  harm  the  wo- 
man I  loved;  yet  each  time  that  Elsie  and  I 
met  seemed  to  bring  us  nearer  to  the  moment 
when  there  would  be  no  retreat  for  us,  when 
the  last  veil  would  fall  of  itself,  and  the  ir- 
remediable would  happen.  All  my  half-hearted 
efforts  to  resist  the  current  that  was  sweeping 
us  along  only  served  to  show  how  strong  the 
current  was,  how  irresistible.  At  length  I 
made  up  my  mind  and  on  next  Saturday 
night  I  wrote  to  her  that  I  could  not  see  her 
on  the  Sunday;  "'we  ought  to  be  prudent." 
Before  I  was  out  of  the  house,  next  morning 
I  received  a  pathetic  little  note,  asking  me 
to  visit  her  some  time  during  the  day.  If  I 
were  busy  would  I  come  to  supper,  or  even 
after  supper,  or  later,  just  to  say  "Good 
night."  It  would  make  the  day  so  happy  to 
know  that  I  was  coming;  the  hours  would  be 
so  long  and  lonely-miserable  if  I  stayed 
away.  .  .  . 

Of  course,  I  yielded.  I  sent  back  at  once 
to  say  that  I  would  put  off  the  work  which  I 
was  required  to  do,  and  take  her  and  her  mo- 
ther for  a  drive  and  a  lunch  out  somewhere 
instead. 


184  THE  BOMB 

I  thought  of  her  mother  simply  as  a  pro- 
tection, and,  of  course,  she  was  a  shield  to 
me;  but  T  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  com- 
panionship and  the  complete  freedom  tempted 
Elsie  to  show  her  love  for  me  a  little  more 
freely  than  she  would  have  done  if  we  had 
been  alone  together.  All  day  long  she  was 
unspeakably  delightful — provocative,  wilful, 
imperious,  as  always,  with  an  undercurrent 
of  appeal  and  abandonment.  The  contrasts 
in  her,  the  quick  changes,  were  simply  be- 
witching. 

I  took  them  out  to  the  little  German  res- 
taurant where  I  had  gone  with  Lingg,  and  the 
whole  place  was  lighted  up  by  Elsie.  She 
tried  all  the  German  dishes,  fell  in  love,  if  you 
please,  with  Sauerkraut,  declared  that  it  was 
excellent;  wanted  to  know  how  to  make  it; 
would  have  the  recipe;  flattered  the  German 
waiter  so  that  he  blushed  all  over  his  white 
face,  and  almost  set  his  straw-coloured  hair 
on  fire. 

After  lunch  we  went  for  a  walk,  and  found 
a  knot  of  trees  making  a  grateful  shade, 
where  we  sat  and  chatted.  Every  now  and 
then  I  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  touch 
Elsie,  and  I  thrilled  from  head  to  foot  at  the 
contact;  and  every  now  and  then  she  touched 
me,  and  the  second  or  third  time  this  hap- 
pened  I   saw  that  she,   too,  touched  me  on 


THE  BOMB  185 

purpose.       The    thought    was    intoxicating. 

We  drove  back  along  the  lake  shore,  with 
the  dying  sun  shooting  long  crimson  arrows, 
fan-like,  over  the  western  sky.  The  colours 
were  all  reflected  in  the  water,  with  a  sort  of 
sombre  purple  magnificence.  I  shall  never 
forget  that  drive.  We  had  put  a  rug  over  our 
knees,  and  I  was  sitting  opposite  Elsie,  and  of 
course  our  feet  met,  and  held  one  another. 
The  peace  and  hush  of  the  dying  day  seemed 
to  envelop  us.  That  was  the  happiest  day 
of  my  life,  for  it  ended  well,  too. 

Mrs.  Lehman  insisted  on  my  staying  to 
supper,  and  we  all  had  supper  together  in  the 
boarding-house.  After  supper  Elsie  put  on 
her  hat  and  came  with  me,  and  then  I  saw 
her  back  home  again  and  by  this  time  the 
stars  had  come  out,  and  a  little  sliver  of  moon, 
a  baby  moon,  was  shining  over  the  lake.  As 
we  said  "Good  night"  at  the  door  her  arms 
went  round  my  neck  naturally,  and  our  lips 
clung  together.  Feeling  her  yield,  and  over- 
powered by  desire,  I  drew  her  inside  the  dark 
passage:  "I  love  you,"  I  said,  "you  darling! 
I  love  you,"  and  went  mad.  "My  own  boy," 
she  sighed  back  to  me,  and  her  supple,  warm 
beauty  gave  itself  to  my  desire.  .  .  . 

But  the  place  was  impossible;  in  a  minute 
or  two  there  came  footsteps  on  the  stairs; 
footsteps,    too,    outside.     I   could   only   hold 


186  THE  BOMB 

her  to  me  in  one  lo^g,  passionate,  quick  kiss 
and  set  her  free,  when  one  of  the  boarders 
came  in  and  discovered  us.  Elsie,  of  course, 
greeted  him  with  perfect  courtesy  and  un- 
concern. I,  too,  tried  to  look  at  my  ease; 
but  there  were  a  thousand  pulses  beating  in 
me,  and  the  blood  was  rioting  through  my 
veins,  and  my  voice,  when  I  spoke,  was  strange 
in  my  ears.  Still,  the  stolen  sweetness  of  it 
all  was  deathless;  it  is  as  honey  in  my  memory; 
whenever  I  think  of  it,  I  taste  life's  ecstasy 
again  at  the  springing  fount,  as  I  had  never 
tasted  it  before. 

The  best  day  of  my  life,  I  said  to  myself, 
as  I  went  back  to  my  lodgings,  and  the  thought 
was  more  exactly  true  than  I  imagined.  The 
best  day!  I  still  see  her  as  she  stood  when 
the  door  opened — the  mutinous  face  and  the 
great  eyes  with  the  curling  lashes,  and  I  hear 
the  cool  words  with  which  she  dismissed  the 
intruder.  .  .  .  Ah  me!  how  long  ago  and 
beautiful  it  all  seems  now! 

All  the  incidents  of  the  late  spring  of  that 
year  are  bathed  in  my  memory  in  golden 
light;  there  is  about  them  the  evanescent 
loveliness  of  April  sunshine.  The  weather 
helped  this  illusion;  there  had  been  floods  of 
rain  early  in  the  month;  now  we  had  a  sort 
of  summer  of  St.  Martin  in  midspring.     The 


THE  BOMB  187 

dreadful,  harsh  winter  had  passed  away  be- 
yond recollection,  and  the  whole  city  turned 
to  enjoyment;  there  were  parties  and  excur- 
sions in  all  directions,  and  for  a  time  the 
mutterings  of  social  war  died  out,  and  we 
heard,  on  every  hand,  the  laughter  of  chil- 
dren. My  new  resolve  to  restrain  myself 
with  Elsie  threw  me  more  and  more  with 
Lingg  and  Ida.  Besides,  as  my  work  for 
the  "Post"  became  more  and  more  important, 
I  needed  to  consult  oftener  with  Lingg.  It 
was  seldom  I  could  use  his  opinions;  they 
were  neither  obvious  nor  popular;  but  he 
always  forced  me  to  think;  and  now  instead 
of  looking  at  me  and  shrugging  his  shoulders 
when  he  disapproved,  he  gave  himself  the 
trouble  of  showing  me  the  steps  by  which  one 
reached  new  thoughts. 

Now,  too,  I  began  to  realize  his  infinite 
kindness  of  nature;  in  spite  of  a  cold  and 
somewhat  formal  manner,  he  was  singularly 
considerate  and  sympathetic  to  every  form  of 
weakness.  Ida  suffered  periodically  from 
shocking,  nervous  headaches;  while  they  lasted 
Lino-oj  moved  about  the  sick-room  with  his 
cat-like,  noiseless  step,  now  bringing  eau-de- 
Cologne  for  her  forehead,  now  mitigating  the 
sun-glare,  now  changing  a  hot  for  a  cool  pil- 
low— indefatigable,  quiet,  helpful.  And  when 
the  crisis  was  past,  he  would  plan  some  ex- 


188  THE  BOMB 

cursion;  forty  miles  on  the  cars,  and  then  a 
whole  day  in  the  woods  with  our  meals  at 
some  farmhouse. 

I  remember  one  excursion  which  T  know 
fell  about  this  time.  Having  thrown  off  the 
headache,  Ida  was  at  her  brightest,  and  Lingg 
and  I  spent  the  whole  noontide  finding  and 
bringing  her  masses  of  spring  flowers  which 
she  tied  into  posies.  We  dined  at  the  Oeslers' 
farm  at  one  o'clock,  and  about  three  we  went 
back  to  the  forest,  as  to  a  temple.  Our  train 
did  not  start  till  seven,  and  Herr  Oesler  had 
promised  to  pick  us  up  with  a  spring-wagon 
and  fast  team  at  six,  so  that  we  might  have  tea 
before  starting  for  the  depot.  At  first,  we 
lay  about  talking  idly  and  laughing,  disin- 
clined for  any  exertion  by  the  untimely  heat; 
but  as  the  sun  slid  down  the  sky,  and  cool  airs 
began  to  make  themselves  felt,  a  more  strenu- 
ous spirit  came  over  us. 

I  had  long  wanted  to  know  why  Lingg 
called  himself  an  anarchist,  what  he  meant 
by  the  term,  and  how  he  defended  it;  and 
accordingly  I  began  to  question  him  on  the 
subject.  I  found  him  in  a  communicative 
mood,  and,  strangely  enough,  he  showed  that 
day  an  idealistic  enthusiasm  which  seemed 
foreign  to  his  nature,  which  a  mere  acquain- 
tance would  never  have  attributed  to  him. 

** Anarchy  is  an  ideal,"  he  said,  "and  like 


THE  BOMB  189 

all  ideals  is  of  course  full  of  practical  faults, 
and  yet  it  has  a  certain  charm.  We  want  to 
govern  ourselves,  and  neither  govern  others 
nor  be  governed  by  them;  that's  the  beginning. 
We  start  from  the  truism  that  no  man  is  fit 
to  judge  another.  Was  there  ever  such  a 
ludicrous  spectacle,  even  on  this  comic  earth, 
as  a  judge  pronouncing  sentence  on  his  fel- 
low! Why,  in  order  to  judge  a  man  at  all, 
one  must  not  only  know  him  intimately,  but 
love  him,  see  him  as  he  sees  himself;  whereas 
your  judge  knows  nothing  about  him,  and  uses 
ignorance  and  a  formula  instead  of  intimate 
sympathy.  And  then  the  vile,  soul-destroy- 
ing punishments  of  the  prison — bad  food, 
enforced  idleness,  or  unsuitable  labour,  and 
solitary  confinement,  instead  of  elevating  com- 
panionship. .  .  . 

"Suppose  there  are  persons  suffering  from 
incurable  moral  faults;  if  there  are  any,  they 
must  be  few  indeed;  but  let's  suppose  there 
are  such  people :  why  punish  them  ?  If  they 
have  incurable  physical  faults  such  as  elephan- 
tiasis, we  take  care  of  them  in  sple-ndidly 
equipped  hospitals;  we  give  them  the  best  of 
air  and  food,  cheerful  books,  regular  exercise; 
we  provide,  too,  charming  nurses  and  good 
doctors.  Why  not  treat  our  moral  patients 
as  well  as  we  treat  congenital  idiots?  Since 
Christ,  with  His  pitying  soul,  came  upon  earth, 


190  THE  BOMB 

we  recognize  in  some  dull,  half-hearted  way 
that  these  deformed  or  diseased  people  are  the 
scapegoats  who  bear  the  sins  of  humanity; 
'they  are  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  and 
with  their  stripes  we  are  healed.'  .  .  . 

"Let  us  sweep  away  both  hospitals  and 
prisons,  and  substitute  lethal  chambers  for 
them,  as  our  pseudo-scientists  would  have  us 
do;  or  let  us  treat  our  moral  lepers  at  least  as 
well  as  we  treat  our  cripples  and  our  idiots. 
As  soon  as  humanity  understands  its  own 
self-interest  it  will  make  an  end  of  prisons  and 
judges,  as  more  poisonous  to  the  soul  than  any 
form  of  crime.  .  .  . 

"I  see  a  thousand  questions  on  your  tongue," 
he  went  on,  laughing;  "resolve  them  all  for 
yourself,  my  dear  Rudolph,  then  they'll  do 
you  good;  but  don't  put  them  to  me.  Each 
of  us  must  construct  the  kingdom  for  himself, 
the  Kingdom  of  Man  upon  Earth.  This 
one  will  make  it  a  fairyland;  that  one  will 
make  it  a  sort  of  castle  of  romance,  with 
machicolated  turrets,  and  set  it  in  a  meadow 
of  blowing  daffodils  and  lilies;  I  would  have  a 
modern  city  with  laboratories  at  every  street 
corner,  and  theatres  and  art  studios  and  danc- 
ing halls,  instead  of  drinking  saloons;  and  at 
another  moment  I  would  build  it  with  tent- 
like houses,  after  the  fashion  of  the  Japs, 
which  could  be  taken  up  and  carried  off  and 


THE  BOMB  191 

reconstructed  in  a  night,  for  "here  we  have  no 
abiding  city/  and  the  love  of  change — change 
of  air,  change  of  scene — is  in  my  blood.  But 
why  shouldn't  we  have  both;  the  stable  work- 
ing city  and  the  fleeting  tents  of  joy  ?  .  .  . 

"There  were  two  beautiful  ideas  in  what 
we  stupidly  call  the  dark  ages:  the  idea  of 
purgatory,  which  is  a  thousand  times  more 
suitable  to  mankind  than  either  hell  or  heaven, 
and  the  idea  of  service.  Think  of  it,  a  noble- 
man would  send  his  son  as  a  page  to  the  house 
of  some  famous  knight  to  learn  courage  and 
courtesy  and  consideration  for  others,  es- 
pecially for  the  weak  or  afficted.  There  was 
nothing  menial  in  such  service;  but  the  noblest 
human  reverence — that's  the  anarchic  ideal 
of  service,  free  and  unpaid  ..."  and  he 
broke  off,  laughing  heartily  at  the  surprise  in 
my  face. 

I  had  never  seen  him  let  himself  go  with 
such  abandon:  he  even  quoted  poetry — a 
verse  of  a  parody  which  he  had  seen  in  a 
paper  and  applied  to  some  Chicago  million- 
aires— with   huge  delight: 

"They  steal  the  lawns  and  grassy  plots, 

They  grab  the  hazel  coverts, 

They  mortgage  the  forget-me-nots 

That  grow  for  happy  lovers." 

He   laughed   boyishly   over  this   for   some 
time,  but  soon  the  graver  mood  came  back. 
''All  true  progress,"  he  said,  "comes  from 


192  THE  BOMB 

the  gifted  individual;  but  in  my  view  a  certain 
amount  of  Socialism  is  needed  to  bring  a 
wider  freedom  to  men,  and  with  completer 
freedom  and  a  stronger  individualism  I  dream 
of  a  State  industrial  army,  uniformed  and  offi- 
cered, employed  in  making  roads  and  bridges, 
Capitols  and  town  halls,  and  people's  parks, 
and  all  sorts  of  things  for  the  common  weal, 
and  this  army  should  be  recruited  from  the 
unemployed.  If  the  officers  are  good  enough, 
believe  me,  in  a  year  or  two,  service  in  the 
State  army  at  even  a  low  rate  of  wages  would 
carry  honour  with  it,  as  our  army  uniform 
does  now.     Don't  forget  that  our  dreams,  if 

^beautiful  enough,  are  certain  to  be  realized; 

\  jthe  dreams  of  to-day  are  the  realities  of  to- 

\  morrow.  .  .  . 

"There  are  three  manifestations  of  the 
divine  in  man,"  he  went  on,  as  if  speaking  to 
himself;  **  beauty  in  girls  and  boys,  the  bodily 
beauty  and  grace  of  youth,  which  we  hide  and 
prostitute,  and  which  we  should  exhibit  and 
admire  in  dances  and  public  games,  for  beauty 
in  itself  humanizes  and  ennobles.  Then  there 
is  genius  in  men  and  women,  which  is  for  the 
most  part  wasted  and  spent  in  a  sordid  con- 
flict with  mediocrity,  and  which  should  be 
sought  out  and  put  to  use  as  the  rarest  and 
most  valuable  of  gifts.  And  then  come  the 
millions   of   the   toil-weary   and   dispossessed 


THE  BOMB  193 

— each  of  them  with  a  spark  of  the  divine 
and  a  right  in  human  pity  to  a  humane  Hfe. 
Oh,  there  needs  no  saviour  of  men  from  among 
the  gods,"  he  cried;  "but  a  saviour  of  God,  of 
the  Divine,  among  men  ..."  and  again  he 
broke  oflf  suddenly,  smiling  with  inscrutable 
eyes. 

There  surely  never  was  a  more  interesting 
talker,  and  I  was  soon  to  find  that  as  a  man 
of  action  he  was  even  greater.  That  day 
was  our  last  day  of  joy  and  happiness  together. 
In  an  hour  or  so  the  farmer  came  and  gathered 
us,  and  Ida  smiled  as  we  all  three  went  hand 
in  hand,  flower-crowned,  to  the  wagon. 

My  resolution  not  to  let  myself  go  with 
Elsie,  or  tempt  her  any  further,  held  for  some 
two  or  three  weeks,  and  then  it  broke  down 
again,  broke  down  more  completely  than 
ever.  I  had  taken  her  out  to  dinner,  and  she 
had  put  on  a  low-necked  dress.  The  day 
had  been  very  warm,  and  the  night  was  close 
and  sultry.  We  dined  together  in  a  private 
room  in  a  German  restaurant,  and  afterwards 
we  sat  together,  or  rather  she  sat  on  my  knees, 
with  my  arms  round  her,  and  I  began  to  kiss 
her  beautiful  bare  shoulders— flower-like,  cool 
and  fragrant. 

I  don't  know  what  possessed  me;  I  had 
been  working  hard  all  day,  had  written  a 


194  THE  BOMB 

couple  of  good  articles,  had  made  a  little  extra 
money,  and  saw  my  way  to  make  more.  I 
was  excited,  happy,  and  therefore,  perhaps,  a 
little  more  thoughtless,  and  a  little  more 
masterful  than  usual.  Success  is  too  apt  to 
make  one  imperious,  and  so  I  took  Elsie  in 
my  arms  and  began  kissing  her  and  caressing 
her,  with  a  thirst  for  her  that  I  cannot  de- 
scribe. The  very  first  kiss  gave  me  the  in- 
tensest  sensation,  made  my  senses  reel,  in 
fact,  and  when  she  stopped  me  I  was  enraged; 
but  she  drew  away  from  me,  and  stood  by 
herself  for  a  minute  or  so,  then  she  turned 
to  me. 

"You  don't  know  how  you  tempt  and  try 
me,"  she  cried,  and  then  after  a  pause:  "How 
I  wish  I  were  beautiful!" 

"Why  do  you  talk  like  that?"  I  said;  "you 
are  beautiful  enough  for  anything,  and  you 
know  it." 

"Oh,  no,  I'm  not,"  she  replied.  "I'm 
just  pretty,  very  pretty,  if  you  like,  on  my 
days;  but  beautiful,  extraordinary,  never.  I'm 
not  tall  enough,"  she  went  on,  meditatively, 
"only  just  middle  height"  (two  inches  below 
that  standard,  I  thought,  with  a  smile,  for 
the  repulse  had  awakened  a  sort  of  sex-antago- 
nism in  me),  "and  sometimes  undistinguished, 
almost  plain." 

She  turned  to  me  and  spoke  passionately: 


THE  BOMB  195 

"If  I  were  beautiful  I'd  yield  to  you  at  once. 
Yes,  I  would,  for  then  I  could  win  through 
anyway,  but,  as  it  is,  I'm  afraid.  You  see, 
I  could  not  win  through  if  anything  happened, 
and  it  would  just  break  mother's  heart;  so 
you  must  not  tempt  me,  Boy,  please!"  and 
her  eyes  besought  me. 

I  took  her  in  my  arms  again,  almost  ruth- 
lessly, in  spite  of  her  soul-revealing  frankness, 
and  again  began  kissing  and  caressing  her — 
as  a  thirsty  man  drinks.  For  a  moment  she 
yielded,  I  think,  and  then  she  broke  away 
again,  and  when  I  asked  her  why,  she  said 
hurriedly,  as  if  afraid  to  trust  herself — 

"I  must  go  now;  I  must  go  home." 

"Oh,  no,  no!"  I  cried.  "If  you  do  not 
care  for  me,  what  does  it  matter,  and  it  is  too 
early  to  go  home  yet.  I'd  have  the  whole 
long  evening  before  me  to  call  myself  names 
in." 

"I  ought  to  go,"  she  repeated. 

"There's  no  risk  for  you,"  I  retorted  sulkily; 
"vou  are  always  completely  mistress  of  your- 
self." 

"Oh,"  she  exclaimed,  "how  blind  you  are, 
and  unkind!  ...  I'd  like  to  go  on  just  as  much 
as  you:  I  should.  Why  do  you  make  me  say 
such  shameful  things.?  But  they  are  true. 
I  am  trembling  now  from  head  to  foQt.  Just 
feel  me.     Ah!"  and  she  came  over  to  me,  and 


196  THE  BOMB 

slipped  into  my  embrace  again,  and  slid  her 
arms  round  my  neck.  "Don't  make  it  too 
hard  for  me.  Boy,"  and  her  lips  gave  them- 
selves to  mine. 

Almost  I  had  taken  her  then.  If  she  had 
not  made  the  appeal  I  should  have.  But 
the  appeal  suddenly  recalled  me  to  the  terrible 
edge  of  the  abyss  on  which  I  was  standing, 
and  I  felt  chilled  to  the  bone.  No,  I  had  no 
right  to.  No,  I  would  be  a  man  now  and 
control  myself;  and  so,  gathering  her  in  my 
arms  and  drawing  her  head  back  to  kiss  her 
throat,  "Dariing  mine!"  I  cried,  "I  won't 
make  it  hard  for  you.  We  two  will  make  it 
easy  for  each  other  always,  won't  we — as 
easy  as  possible?" 

Again  her  lips  sought  mine  with  a  little 
contented  sigh.  From  that  time  on,  I  think 
the  resistance  in  her  was  completely  broken, 
and  I  could  have  won  her  whenever  I  liked, 
but  I  dared  not.  All  my  regard  for  her,  all 
my  admiration  of  her  beauty  and  frankness 
and  provocative  charm  came  back,  and  helped 
me  again  and  again  to  restrain  myself.  I 
would  not  yield,  and  the  less  would  I  yield 
now  that  there  were  no  barriers  between  us; 
for  after  this  day,  when  she  found  that  I 
meant  to  restrain  myself,  she  did  not  attempt 
to  restrain  me,  but  gave  herself  to  my  desire. 
I  could  do  what  I  would  with  her,  and  this 


THE  BOMB  197 

freedom,  the  power  given  to  me,  held  me  back 
as  nothing  else  could.  I  fought  with  myself, 
and  every  time  I  conquered,  Elsie  was  sweeter 
to  me,  and  made  the  next  self-conquest  harder 
and  easier  at  the  same  time.  I  cannot  ex- 
plain the  tangled  web  of  my  feelings,  nor  how 
the  tenderness  for  her  triumphed  over  my 
passion;  but  the  passion  was  always  there, 
too,  watching  its  opportunity  and  trying  to 
make  it.  But  from  that  night  on  I  held  it  by 
the  throat,  though  it  twmed  snake-like  round 
all  my  body  and  nearly  conquered  at  the  last. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AND  now,  like  those  who  have  sown  the 
wind,  we  came,  at  length,  to  the  reap- 
ing of  the  whirlwind.  For  a  moment  there 
was  a  lull  in  the  storm;  the  gale,  so  to  speak, 
taking  breath  for  a  final  desperate  effort. 
There  are  those  who  profess  to  find  a  crescen- 
do in  the  awful  business  from  beginning  to 
end.  We  who  lived  at  the  storm-centre  did 
not  remark  that — perhaps  because  we  had 
other  and  more  important  things  to  do  and 
think  about.  You  see  the  position:  on  this 
side  intolerant,  greedy  Americans,  satisfied 
with  their  steal-as-you-can  or  competitive 
swindling  society;  on  the  other  side  bands  of 
foreign  workmen  with  ideas  of  justice,  right 
and  fair  play  in  their  heads,  and  little  or 
nothing  in  their  bellies.  These  poor  foreigners 
were  systematically  overworked,  and  under- 
paid; they  had  no  compensation  for  injuries 
incurred  in  their  work;  they  were  liable  for 
I  the  most  part  to  be  discharged  at  a  moment's 
notice,  the  longest  notice  accorded  being  a 
week,  and  that  notice  was  usually  given  on 
the  approach  of  winter,  in  order  that  the  honest 
employer  might  weed  out  the  worse  workmen 


THE  BOMB  199 

and  force  down  to  starvation  limit  the  wages 
of  the  best.  On  the  side  of  the  Americans, 
the  authorities,  the  law-courts,  the  poHce; 
the  whole  vile  paraphernalia  of  so-called 
justice  with  armed  mihtia  in  the  background, 
and  if  that  was  not  enough,  the  Federal  army 
of  the  United  States.  The  churches,  too, 
and  the  professions,  the  trained  intelligence 
of  the  nation  stood  with  the  robbers.  The 
foreign  workmen,  on  the  other  side,  were 
unarmed,  rent  apart  by  differences  of  race  and 
language,  without  a  leader,  rallying-point,  or 
settled  policy.  If  might  is  right  they  had  no 
chance;  yet  right  is  always  in  process  of  be- 
coming might,  even  in  this  confused  welter  of 
a  world — that  is  hardly  to  be  denied.  What, 
then,  will  be  the  outcome.^ 

One  incident  threw  light,  as  from  a  red 
flare,  into  the  sordid  arena.  There  was  at 
that  time  a  store  selling  drugs  and  groceries 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  foreign  population. 
This  store  had  a  telephone,  and  was  therefore 
much  frequented  by  quick  American  reporters 
eager  to  get  messages  to  and  from  their  papers. 
The  foreign  workmen  believed,  with  good 
reason,  that  this  telephone  had  been  used 
on  more  than  one  occasion  to  call  down  the 
police  on  them.  Naturally  they  regarded 
the  reporters  with  hatred  and  suspicion;  were 
they  not  the  eager  tools  of  the  capitalist  press  ? 


200  THE  BOMB 

One  night  a  band  of  Polish  and  Bohemian 
workmen  got  together,  headed  by  a  hot  young 
Jew  who  spoke  both  tongues;  he  led  the  mob 
to  the  drug  store,  entered  with  a  bound,  seized 
and  tore  down  the  telephone;  the  others 
following  the  brave  example,  rushed  in  and 
began  to  wreck  the  store,  drinking,  meanwhile, 
whatever  wine  or  spirits  they  could  lay  their 
hands  on.  Fortunately,  or  unfortunately,  the 
grocer  man,  it  appears,  had  two  gallon  jars 
of  wine  of  colchicum.  These  were  seized, 
uncorked,  drained  in  an  instant,  and  so  some 
ten  poor  wretches  paid  for  their  petty  fling- 
out  with  their  lives.  Nature  is  nothing  if  not 
prodigal.  I  recall  the  incident  to  show  that 
the  workmen  were  not  always  in  the  right; 
but  whether  in  the  wrong  or  in  the  right,  they 
always  paid  the  bill,  and  it  was  generally 
heavy. 

Curiously  enough.  Parsons,  of  "The  A- 
larm,"  showed  himself  in  his  true  colours  at 
this  time.  The  wrecking  of  the  drug  store 
turned  a  fierce,  unfriendly  light  upon  the 
reporters.  Again  and  again  men  with  note- 
books were  attacked  by  strikers  or  passing 
workmen.  On  several  occasions  Parsons  in- 
tervened and  saved  the  unfortunates  from 
the  violence  of  their  enemies.  As  I  have  said 
before.  Parsons  was  by  nature  and  upbringing 
a  moderate  reformer,  and  was  neither  a  rebel 


THE  BOMB  201 

nor  a  revolutionary.  He  had  a  gift  of  speech, 
but  not  of  thought. 

The  winter  had  been  long  and  bitter.  For 
weeks  together  the  thermometer  registered 
from  ten  to  forty  degrees  below  zero,  and 
Chicago  is  exposed  to  every  wind  that  blows. 
Great  frozen  lakes  surround  it  to  the  north, 
and  gales  sweep  the  town,  tornadoes  of  fear- 
ful violence,  blizzards  raking  the  streets  with 
icy  teeth.  Not  a  place  to  be  out  of  work  in 
during  the  winter.  And  all  through  the  winter 
strikes  were  of  weekly  occurrence.  This  firm 
or  that  trying  to  squeeze  down  their  employees 
or  to  weed  out  the  worse  ones,  brought  about 
lockouts  or  bitter  strikes,  and  at  once  the 
police  patrols  went  galloping  to  the  threatened 
point,  and  used  their  bludgeons  on  the  un- 
armed and  hungry  strikers.  But  the  police 
were  too  few  for  this  additional  work;  they 
were  unwisely  directed,  too,  overdriven  and 
harassed  to  exasperation.  All  the  elements 
here  piled  ready  for  the  final  conflagration. 

As  the  winter  broke  into  spring,  Spies  and 
Parsons  revived  the  agitation  for  eight  hours' 
work,  and  set  about  organizing  a  great  dem- 
onstration for  the  first  of  May.  This  ex- 
asperated the  American  population,  and  en- 
couraged the  foreigners.  At  this  moment, 
as  the  destinies  would  have  it,  the  small 
strikes  were  swallowed  up  in  a  great  strike. 


202  THE  BOMB 

The  factory  of  the  famous  McCormick  harves- 
ter and  reaper  works  was  situated  on  the  far 
west  side  of  the  city.  Close  by  to  the  east 
were  the  teeming  foreign  quarters  of  Germans, 
Poles,  and  Bohemians.  Nine  out  of  ten 
of  the  McCormick  workmen  were  foreigners, 
and  were  engaged  in  simple  hand-work  which 
anyone  could  do.  The  McCormick  managers 
attempted  therefore  to  fill  the  places  of  the 
strikers  at  once,  for  summer  with  its  renewed 
demand  was  coming  on ;  this  caused  riot  after 
riot.  The  strikers  picketed  the  streets,  tried 
to  prevent  the  new  men  from  going  to  work, 
sometimes,  it  is  said,  used  force.  Immediate- 
ly the  police  were  called  for  and  intervened 
vigorously.  Women  and  children  attacked 
the  patrol  wagons  and  threw  stones  at  the 
police.  Men,  women,  and  even  children, 
were  savagely  clubbed  in  return.  Meetings 
were  held  nightly  on  every  corner  throughout 
the  district  to  express  sympathy  with  the 
strikers.  The  police  broke  up  these  meetings 
in  a  sort  of  frenzy  of  rage.  Again  and  again 
perfectly  orderly  and  unobjectionable  gather- 
ings were  dispersed  with  the  bludgeon.  The 
guardians  of  law  and  order  used  violence  on 
every  possible  occasion,  even  when  it  was 
clearly  unnecessary,  and  this  exasperated  the 
foreign  workmen. 

The  first  of  May  dawned.     All  day  long 


THE  BOMB  203 

the  police  scurried  from  point  to  point 
breaking  up  this  meeting  with  threats,  and 
dispersing  that  with  force,  plainly  show- 
ing themselves  everywhere  masters  of  the 
situation.  The  American  newspapers  had 
talked  so  loudly  of  what  the  strikers  were 
going  to  do,  that  when  the  first  of  May 
passed  without  any  dangerous  revolutionary 
attempt,  nine  out  of  ten  American  citizens 
were  ready  to  believe  that  they  had  been  mis- 
taken, that  the  whole  thing  had  been  exag- 
gerated by  their  newspapers,  which  was,  in- 
deed, the  bare  truth.  Every  one  hoped  now 
that  the  excitement  would  subside,  that  the 
angry  passions  would  gradually  settle  down, 
and  that  quiet  and  order  would  once  more  be 
established.  But  in  spite  of  temporary  set- 
backs everything  was  hurrying  to  a  dreadful 
climax. 

On  one  side  of  the  McCormick  works  at 
this  time  was  a  large,  open  field;  in  and  about 
this  field  the  strikers  gathered  daily  in  crowds. 
It  was  the  second  of  May,  I  think,  that  the 
'*Arbeiter  Zeitung"  called  a  meeting  on  this 
field  for  the  afternoon  of  the  third.  There 
was  a  railroad  switch  on  the  field,  and  on  it 
an  empty  freight  car.  From  the  roof  of  this 
car  Spies  opened  the  meeting  with  an  enthusi- 
astic, fiery  speech.  The  men  who  listened  to 
him  were  strikers,  two  or  three  thousand  in 


204  THE  BOINIB 

number.  As  soon  as  he  had  finished  his 
speech  this  mob,  armed  with  sticks  and  stones, 
started  for  the  works  to  attack  the  new  men 
taken  on  in  their  places,  the  **  strike-breakers,'* 
as  they  called  them.  These  men  hid  them- 
selves in  the  tower  of  the  main  building:  the 
strikers  searched  about  for  them  everywhere 
in  vain,  breaking  the  windows,  meanwhile, 
with  showers  of  stones.  In  the  midst  of  this 
riot  half  a  dozen  police  wagons  came  charging 
up.  They  were  received  with  stones,  thrown 
\  principally  by  women.  The  police  at  once 
drew  their  revolvers  and  began  to  fire  at  the 
crowd.  The  majority  of  the  mob  broke  and 
fled.  A  few  of  the  strikers  made  a  stand, 
and  were  clubbed  and  shot  down.  Forty  or 
fifty  people  were  wounded,  seven  or  eight 
killed  outright  by  the  police  bullets. 

This  dreadful  deed  aroused  the  worst 
passions  of  both  parties.  The  American  news- 
papers upheld  the  police,  applauded  their 
action,  and  encouraged  them  to  continue  to 
enforce  the  law  and  maintain  peace  and  order. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  of  us  who  were  in 
any  sympathy  with  the  strikers  condemned 
the  police  as  guilty  of  monstrous  and  cause- 
less murder. 

The  leaders  of  the  strikers  called  meetings 
for  the  next  evening,  the  fourth,  to  denounce 
the  police  for  shooting  unarmed   men.     Of 


THE  BOMB  206 

these  the  most  important  was  called  by  Spies 
and  Parsons,  and  was  to  be  held  in  Desplaines 
Street,  a  shabby  street  soon  to  be  made  memo- 
rable for  ever. 

I  had  been  with  the  strikers  in  the  attack 
upon  the  McCormick  works.  Lingg  came 
late  upon  the  scene;  but  he  it  was  who  tried 
to  make  a  stand  against  the  police  when  they 
fired  on  the  crowd.  After  the  riot  was  over, 
I  helped  him  to  carry  away  one  of  the  wounded 
women.  She  was  only  a  girl,  eighteen  or 
nineteen  years  of  age,  and  was  shot  through 
the  body.  When  I  saw  Lingg  lifting  her  I 
ran  to  his  aid.  The  poor  girl  tried  to  thank 
us.  She  was  plainly  dying;  indeed,  she  died 
just  after  we  reached  the  hospital  with  her. 
I  never  saw  Lingg  so  wrought  up  before;  yet 
he  was  quite  calm,  and  spoke  even  more  slowly 
than  his  wont;  but  his  eyes  were  glowering, 
and  when  the  doctor  dropped  her  wrist  with 
a  careless  "She's  dead,"  I  thought  Lingg  was 
going  to  fly  at  him.  I  was  glad  to  get  him 
away  and  into  the  streets  again.  There  I 
had  to  leave  him,  because  I  had  to  go  home 
and  write  my  daily  article.  I  found  that  even 
Engel  had  been  at  the  riot,  and  had  come 
back  beside  himself  with  indignation.  Poor, 
gentle,  kindly  Engel  was  absolutely  maddened 
by  the  brutality  of  the  police. 

"They  dare  to  shoot  women!"  he  cried. | 


206  THE  BOMB 

"The  brutes!"  I  could  only  clench  my  teeth. 

As  soon  as  I  had  finished  my  work  I  made 
my  way  to  Lingg's  rooms.  He  lived  a  good 
way  from  me,  a  couple  of  miles,  and  the  walk 
in  the  beautiful  summer-like  air  did  something 
to  quiet  my  nerves.  On  the  way  I  bought  an 
evening  paper;  I  found  in  it  a  travesty  of  the 
facts,  a  tissue  of  lies  from  beginning  to  end, 
and  a  brutal  tone. 

When  I  knocked  at  Lingg's  door  I  did  not 
know  what  to  expect;  but  as  soon  as  I  entered 
I  was  conscious  of  a  new  atmosphere.  The 
reading-lamp  with  its  green  shade  stood 
lighted  upon  the  table.  Lingg  sat  beside  it, 
half  in  the  light,  half  in  the  shade.  Ida  had 
been  sitting  on  the  other  side,  completely  in 
the  dark.  As  she  opened  the  door  I  saw  she 
had  been  ciydng. 

Lingg  said  nothing  when  I  came  into  the 
room,  and  at  first  I,  too,  had  nothing  to  say. 
At  last  I  managed  to  ask  him  lamely — 

"What  did  you  think  of  it,  Lingg?  Terri- 
ble, wasn't  it?" 

He  looked  at  me  for  a  moment. 

"It's  the  parting  of  the  ways." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  I  asked. 

"Either  the  police  must  be  allowed  to  do 
whatever  they  please,  or  we  must  strike  back. 
Submission  or  revolt." 

"What  do  you  intend  to  do.^"  I  asked. 


^   1 


THE  BOMB  207 

"Revolt,"  he  replied  on  the  instant. 

"Then  count  me  in,  too,"  I  cried,  the  wild 
indignation  in  me  flaming. 

"Better  think  it  over,"  he  warned  me. 

"There's  no  need  to  think,"  I  returned; 
"I  have  done  all  the  thinking  necessary." 

He  looked  at  me  with  the  kindly  searching 
eyes. 

"I  wish  we  could  get  at  the  master-robbers," 
he  said,  half  to  himself.  "It  seems  absurd 
to  strike  the  hands  and  let  the  directing  brains 
go  free;  but  the  pohce- wrong  is  the  more 
manifest,  and  we  have  no  time  to  pick  and 
choose." 

"It's  the  police  I'm  down  on,"  I  cried  hotly; 
"the  brutes!" 

"What  about  the  meeting  to-morrow.^" 
Lingg  asked.  "Will  they  try  to  disperse  that 
— I  mean  the  meeting  in  the  Hay  market  .'^" 

The  first  time  I  heard  the  word  was  then 
from  Lingg's  lips.  Knowing  the  place  better 
than  he  did,  I  began  to  explain  that  it  was  not 
in  the  Haymarket,  but  a  hundred  yards  away, 
in  Desplaines  Street.  He  nodded  his  head; 
yet  in  some  way  or  other  he  had  found  at  once 
the  name  that  shall  in  all  future  time  be  given 
to  the  place. 

The  next  thing  discussed  was  the  amount  of 
money  I  had.  Lingg  had  made  up  his  mind 
that  I  was  to  escape  and  hide  in  Europe;  he 


208  THE  BOMB 

was  glad  to  find  that  I  had  nearly  a  thousand 
dollars  put  by.  I  had  been  saving  for  my 
marriage.  He  promised  to  call  next  morning. 
I  was  not  to  make  up  my  mind  then,  or  think 
of  what  I  should  do;  the  strain  of  long  think- 
ing on  one  subject  was  exhausting,  he  said, 
and  proceeded  to  show  his  wonderful  self- 
control  by  putting  the  whole  of  the  occurrences 
out  of  his  head. 

He  talked  a  little  about  himself,  laughingly. 
"When  it  comes  to  my  turn,"  he  said,  "and 
they  catch  me,  they  will  give  me  an  awful 
character.  They'll  say  I  am  a  rebel  and 
anarchist  because  I'm  illegitimate;  but  that's 
not  true.  I  had  the  best  mother  in  the  world. 
I  was  always  perfectly  content  with  my  birth. 
Of  course  I  despised  the  wretched  creature 
who  seduced  my  mother  and  then  abandoned 
her;  but  such  animals  are  not  rare  among  the 
German  aristocracy.  No,  I  grew  bitter  when 
I  came  to  understand  the  conditions  of  a  work- 
man's life.  Yet  it  was  always  pretty  easy  for 
me  to  get  a  living,"  he  added. 

His  talk  that  evening  was  curiously  im- 
personal, for  the  most  part,  and  so  to  speak, 
detached.  Some  phrases  of  it,  however,  were 
illuminating. 

"The  writer,"  he  said,  "tries  to  find  a 
characteristic  word;  the  painter  some  scene 
that  will  enable  him  to  express  himself.     I 


THE  BOMB  209 

always  wanted  a  characteristic  deed,  some- 
thing that  no  one  else  would  do,  or  could  do. 
One  should  be  strong  enough  to  bend  and 
constrain  deeds  to  one's  service,  and  they  are 
more  stubborn  than  words,  more  recalcitrant 
than  bronze.  ..." 

His  forecast  of  what  would  happen  was 
astonishingly  correct,  though  now  for  the 
first  time  he  began  to  speak  passionately,  and 
his  phrases  stand  out  in  my  memory  as  if 
blazoned  with  fire. 

"If  a  bomb  is  thrown  the  police  will  arrest 
hundreds;  they  will  accuse  a  dozen  innocent 
men,  and  more.  I  want  to  go  into  their 
court-room,  the  court-room  of  this  robber 
society,  and  when  the  venal  judge  gives  sen- 
tence, I  mean  to  stand  up  and  say,  'You  have 
pronounced  sentence  on  yourself,  damn  you!' 
and  with  my  own  hand  execute  my  verdict. 

"I  have  had  enough,"  he  said,  speaking 
with  indescribable  intensity,  "of  the  whole 
damned  hypocritical  society,  where  the  greedy 
thieves  are  exalted,  and  those  that  steal  and 
plunder  and  murder,  judge  and  punish  their 
betters.  .  .  . 

"Besides,"  he  went  on,  "in  my  soul  I'm 
glad  to  make  an  end;  I  never  did  mean  to  die 
in  my  bed,  to  stand  upon  the  stage  of  life 
talking  or  acting  and  suddenly  to  be  pulled 
off  backward  by  the  hair,  so  to  speak,  and 


210  THE  BOMB 

thrown  on  the  dust-heap.  By  God,"  and  the 
deep  voice  was  appalling  in  its  passion,  "I 
will  pull  down  the  curtain  with  my  own  hands, 
and  shut  off  the  lights  when  I  please.  I'll 
be  my  own  judge  and  executioner.  It  is 
something  to  die  like  a  man  and  not  like  a 
sheep.  .  .  ." 

What  more  was  there  to  be  said?  I  was 
merely  drinking  in  draughts  of  courage  from 
Lingg's  spirit.  When  I  went  out  of  the  room 
I  was  treading  on  air,  filled  with  his  desperate 
resolution.  I,  too,  would  pull  down  the  cur- 
tain with  my  own  hands,  and  shut  off  the 
lights.  So  astonishing  was  the  man's  influence, 
so  intense  the  virtue  that  came  out  of  him,  so 
absorbing  the  passion,  that  I  went  striding 
through  the  streets  wildly,  without  a  moment's 
misgiving,  and,  finding  Engel  was  out,  went 
straight  to  bed  and  slept  like  a  log. 

True,  I  woke  up  next  day  gasping  with 
fear,  as  if  some  one  had  been  seated  on  my 
heart,  preventing  it  from  beating;  but  as  soon 
as  I  came  to  myself  and  thought  of  Lingg  the 
discomfort  passed,  and  I  got  up  and  dressed. 
While  I  was  having  my  breakfast  about  eight 
o'clock,  \\dth  Engel,  Lingg  came  in,  the  steady 
eyes  shining.  We  had  a  little  talk,  and  went 
out  together.  He  accompanied  me  to  the 
bank,  where  I  drew  out  my  money.  After- 
wards we  went,  according  to  his  advice,  to 


THE  BOMB  211 

three  different  changers,  and  changed  it  for 
gold,  and  then  he  took  me  away  to  dinner 
with  Ida. 

Ida  was  very  white  and  very  still;  we  dined 
together  in  a  room  all  by  ourselves.  Some- 
how or  other  this  comparative  solitude,  or 
the  enforced  companionship  with  Lingg  and 
Ida,  who  talked  in  monosyllables  about  dif- 
ferent things,  began  to  weigh  upon  me.  At 
the  end  of  dinner  I  said — 

"Look,  Lingg,  I  want  to  be  by  myself. 
I'm  going  back  to  the  house." 

His  eyes  searched  me. 

"Don't  think  you  have  gone  too  far  to 
retreat,"  he  said  quietly.  "If  you  feel  you 
would  rather  not  do  it,  don't  mind  saying  so 
a  bit,  Rudolph.  You  have  a  happy  life  before 
you,  and  you  are  a  dear,  good  fellow;  I  don't 
want  to  drag  you  into  the  maelstrom." 

"No,  no!"  I  cried,  catching  fire  again  from 
his  immutable  purpose.  "I  am  going  on, 
but  I  must  be  alone  for  a  little  while  first;  I 
must  think  and  and  make  final  arrangements, 
that's  all." 

"I  quite  see,"  he  said.  "Do  you  wish  me 
to  come  for  you  to-night,  or  would  you  rather 
put  it  off.?" 

"Come  for  me,"  I  said,  "at  eight,"  and  I 
held  out  my  hands.  He  took  both  my  hands 
in  his,  and  involuntarily  I  bent  forward,  and 


212  THE  BOMB 

we  kissed,  for  the  first  time,  kissed  as  comrades 
and  lovers.  As  I  passed  out  of  the  restaurant 
I  was  consecrate,  giddily  exalted.  I  went  to 
my  rooms  filled  with  intense  resolution.  I 
packed  a  grip  with  just  my  best  things,  a  suit 
of  clothes,  a  flannel  shirt  or  two,  a  dozen 
collars — bare  necessaries — and  then  lay  down 
on  the  bed  to  face  my  own  soul.  But  the 
exaltation  of  Lingg's  love  still  held  me. 

"So  this  is  the  end  of  your  high  ambitions," 
I  said  to  myself;  "the  boundar}^  and  limit  of 
all  your  hopes  and  fears,  the  goal  of  life  for 
you?" 

"Yes,"  my  deeper  self  answered  with  strong 
resolve,  "this  is  the  meaning  of  the  struggle, 
and  my  part  in  it  is  clear.  I  know  what  the 
weak  suffer;  I  know  how  the  poor  are  tor- 
tured; I  know  the  forces  against  them,  yet  I 
stand  for  the  weak,  and  for  justice  and  right 
to  the  end  —  and  beyond."  There  was 
thrilling  exultation  in  me;  but  no  fear,  no 
doubt. 

After  sitting  a  while  by  myself,  I  heard  a 
little  noise  down  below  in  the  shop,  then 
footsteps  on  the  stairs,  and  a  timid  knocking 
at  the  door. 

"Come  in,"  I  said;  and  to  my  astonishment 
Elsie  came  in.  I  could  not  have  been  more 
surprised  if  the  Governor  of  the  State  had 
entered. 


THE  BOMB  213 

"Why,  Elsie,"  I  cried,  "what  are  you  doinff 
here?" 

"You  don't  answer  my  letters,"  she  said, 
"and  you  did  not  come  yesterday  to  see  me, 
though  it  was  our  day,  so  I  came  to  find  you, 
sir.     Are  you  cross  with  me?" 

"No,  indeed,"  I  said,  putting  a  chair  for 
her.     "Won't  you  take  off  your  things?" 

"I  will  stay  a  little  while  if  I  may,"  she  said, 
"though  it  seems  strange  and  not  quite  right 
to  be  here;  but  I  must  have  a  talk  with  you." 
She  went  over  to  the  glass,  took  off  her  hat, 
smoothed  her  hair,  laid  aside  her  little  jacket, 
and  came  back  for  the  talk;  and  the  talk,  if 
you  consider  it,  was  curious  enough. 

The  majority  of  men  believe,  or  profess  to 
believe,  that  women  are  insidious,  sly,  decep- 
tive, or  else  crack-brained  creatures  who 
prefer  crooked  paths  to  straight,  and  would 
rather  miss  their  ends  by  cunning  than  com- 
pass them  by  honesty.  I  have  known  only 
this  one  woman  intimately,  but  I  found  her 
absolutely  frank  and  simple,  obeying  every 
impulse  of  her  feelings,  like  a  child,  or  rather 
as  she  had  only  one  dominant  passion,  giving, 
herself  to  that  with  inconsiderate  abandon- 
ment, as  a  ship  obeys  her  helm. 

Elsie  drew  up  a  chair,  sat  down  beside  me, 
and  began — 

"I  hardly  know  how  to  say  it,  Boy;  but  I 


214  THE  BOMB 

must;  ain't  you  too  much  with  Ida  Miller?" 
(This  direct  approach  was  simply  to  surprise 
me;  but  my  genuine  look  of  astonishment 
checked  her.)  "Oh,  I  don't  mean  that  you 
are  in  love  with  her  yet\  but  she  has  a  great 
influence  over  you,  hasn't  she  ?"  and  she  fixed 
me  with  narrowing  eyes. 

I  could  only  shake  my  head  and  repeat — 

"*In  love  with  Ida';  however  did  you  get 
that  into  your  head  ?  Why,  she's  devoted  to 
Lingg,  and  I  never  though':  of  her  except  as  a 
friend.  Your  little  roof  must  have  a  slate 
ofif,"  and  I  tapped  her  on  the  forehead,  laugh- 
ing. 

"No,  no;  I'm  sane  enough,"  she  went  on 
impatiently;  "but  if  it  isn't  Ida,  who  is  it?" 

"It's  Elsie,"  I  replied  gravely. 

"Don't  make  fun  of  me,"  she  said,  dimp- 
ling. "  What  has  changed  you  ?  You  know, 
it  makes  me  angry  to  think  of  it.  Just  as  I 
have  yielded  to  you,  you  seem  to  have  drawn 
into  yourself  and  grown  colder  and  colder. 
It  makes  me  mad  to  think  I  should  have  given 
myself,  and  not  be  wanted." 

The  pity  of  it!  I  gathered  her  into  my 
arms  at  once,  crying — 

"Elsie,  Elsie,  of  course  you're  wanted  just 
as  much  as  ever;  more  than  ever — much 
more.  I  cannot  touch  you  without  thrilling. 
If  I  restrain  myself,  it  is  for  your  sake,  dear." 


THE  BOMB  215 

She  looked  at  me  through  her  tears,  one 
question  in  her  eyes. 

"How  can  that  be,  Boy?  You  didn't  re- 
strain yourself   before;   nothing   would   stop 

you!" 

"You  have  grown  dearer  to  me,  more 
precious,"  I  cried.  "Your  frankness  has 
been  extraordinary.  At  first  I  just  loved  you; 
now  I  admire  you  and  honour  you  beyond 
every  one.  You  are  such  a  great  little  per- 
sonality. You  have  made  all  other  women 
clear  to  me,  I  think,  and  I  honour  them  all 
for  your  sake." 

"Who  has  taught  you  to  pay  all  these  com- 
pliments?" she  asked,  with  her  head  on  one 
side,    smiling. 

"Elsie,"  I  said,  "and  my  love  for  her.  All 
roads  lead  to  Rome;  all  words  bring  me  just 
to  that  one  word,  'Elsie,'"  and  after  kissing 
her  I  put  her  back  on  her  seat  again. 

"There,  you  see!"  she  cried;  *'you  used  to 
hold  me  in  your  arms  for  hours  and  hours; 
you  were  never  tired  of  kissing  and  caressing 
me;  and  now,  as  soon  as  possible  you  put  me 
away  from  you!"  and  her  eyes  filled  with 
tears. 

"Because  I  am  flesh  and  blood,"  I  returned, 
"and  do  not  want  to  yield  to  the  desire  that 
is  driving  me  crazy." 

"But  suppose  I  let  you  yield  to  it,"  she 


216  THE  BOMB 

replied,  looking  down.  "As  you  say  you 
have  changed,  suppose  I  have  changed,  too; 
if  you  asked  me  now  to  marry  you,  I  should 
say  *yes'  instead  of  *no'?  Doesn't  that  alter 
everything?"  And  she  looked  up  at  me 
with  the  clear  eyes  alight,  and  a  little  hot 
flush  in  her  cheeks. 

I  caught  at  any  straw.  I  saw  that  if  she 
pressed  me  much  more  I  should  be  sure  to 
confess  that  I  had  changed  for  some  reason, 
and  in  this  way  might  put  her  on  the  track. 

"If  we  are  going  to  be  married,"  I  said,  "it 
would  of  course  be  different;  but  one  would 
be  a  poor  fool,  then,  not  to  wait,  wouldn't 
one?" 

Her  eyes  searched  me  again,  and  she  shook 
her  head  slowly,  as  if  unconvinced  or  sus- 
picious. 

"I  suppose  so,"  she  said  at  length;  "but  it 
doesn't  matter  so  much,  does  it  ?" 

I  was  forced  to  admit  that,  so  I  said,  "No, 
you  sweet,"  and  put  my  arms  round  her  and 
kissed  her  lips,  and  felt  her  whole  supple 
body  thrilling,  yielding  to  my  embrace. 

How  I  controlled  myself  and  dragged  my- 
self away,  I  don't  know;  but  I  did,  though  the 
conflict  was  hot  enough  to  rob  me  for  some 
minutes  of  any  power  even  of  thinking.  As 
in  a  dream  I  heard  her  telling  me  that  she 
thought  much  more  of  me  for  my  self-control. 


THE  BOMB  217 

that  she  would  have  a  man  too  strong  to  yield 
to  anything,  unless  his  reason  told  him  it  was 
right.  And  so  she  went  on  praising  me  until 
I  closed  her  sweet  lips  with  kisses. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  after  a  while,  looking  into 
my  eyes;  "at  least  you  have  taught  me  what 
love  is.  Boy,  and  I  want  your  love  to  be  bound- 
less, like  mine,  to  stifle  all  considerations,  and 
hesitations.  I  am  willing  to  yield  to  you. 
Boy,  my  boy,  now.  ..." 

And  she  held  my  forehead  in  her  tiny  hands 
and  looked  bravely  at  me  with  the  great  shin- 
ing eyes. 

"You  men  think  we  women  have  no  curiosi- 
ty, no  desire.  It  is  not  the  same  desire  as 
yours,  dear;  but  it  is  stronger,  I  think.  Yield- 
ing means  more  to  us  than  to  you,  and  there- 
fore we  are  a  little  more  cautious  than  you, 
more  prudent;  but  not  much  more,  consider- 
ing all  things.  .  .  . 

"You  tempt  us  with  desire,  with  the  pleasure 
you  give,  and  we  can  resist;  but  tempt  us 
with  tenderness,  or  self-sacrifice,  ask  us  to  do 
it  for  you,  and  we  melt  at  once.  We  women 
love  to  give  delight  to  those  we  love.  We 
are  born  with  breasts.  Boy,  to  give.  Ask  us 
to  enjoy,  and  we  can  refuse;  ask  us  to  give 
joy,  and  we  yield  at  once.  .  .  . 

"That  is  why  the  tempting  of  men  is  so 
ignoble.     Oh,   of  course,  not  in  your  case; 


218  THE  BOMB 

you'd  marry  me,  I  know.  It  is  different;  but 
still  the  woman's  is  the  nobler  part.  You  ask 
for  yourselves,  and  we  yield  for  your  sakes. 
It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive. 
But  you.  Boy,  don't  accept  the  gift,  and  I 
don't  know  whether  to  be  proud  of  you  or 
angry  with  you.  What  silly  things  we  women 
are!" 

Elsie  always  startled  me.  There  was  such 
insight  in  her,  such  understanding.  As  re- 
gards love,  at  least,  she  knew  more  than 
any  man.  I  began  to  wonder  whether  I  was 
right  in  concealing  anything  from  her.  A 
moment's  thought  convinced  me  that  I  had 
been  wrong;  I  ought  to  have  told  her  every- 
thing; but  it  was  too  late  now,  far  too  late.  I 
felt  that  she  would  be  against  me,  against 
Lingg,  passionately,  terribly.  I  could  not 
make  a  long  fight  with  her  this  last  afternoon; 
it  was  impossible,  and  besides,  my  secret  was 
not  mine  alone;  my  only  hope  was  to  remain 
on  the  surface,  not  to  get  to  deep,  self- 
revealing  levels;  so  I  began  to  talk  of  our 
marriage. 

"Where  can  we  live,  Elsie?  Won't  your 
mother  be  afraid,  and  are  you  quite  sure  you 
will  never  regret,  you  delight?" 

"I  don't  think  a  woman  ever  regrets  what 
she  does  for  love's  sake,"  she  said;  "at  any 
rate,  I'm  sure  she  never  regrets  so  long  as  she 


THE  BOMB  219 

is  loved.  It  IS  only  when  his  love  dies  that 
she  regrets." 

"I  am  a  little  afraid,"  I  broke  ofiF,  "that 
my  attitude  to  these  strikes  will  do  me  harm 
on  the  American  papers;  it  has  already  dam- 
aged me.  Wilson  says  he  finds  socialism  now 
even  in  my  account  of  a  fire;  and  yet  I  try  to 
stick  to  the  bare  facts." 

"I  hate  that  old  socialism  anyway!"  cried 
Elsie,  "and  the  frowsy  meetings.  Why  should 
you  bother  about  the  poor.^  They  wouldn't 
do  anything  for  you,  and  even  if  they  knew 
what  you  were  doing  for  them  they  would  not 
be  grateful  to  you.  Besides,  they're  no  good 
anyway.  Why  should  you  spoil  your  future 
for  a  set  of  common  men  who  are  nothing  to 
you  at  all.?" 

I  shook  my  head.  "We  don't  do  things 
always  for  the  rewards,  Elsie,  but  because  we 
must.   .   .   ." 

"It  is  just  silly,"  she  said.  "I  wonder  is  it 
Lingg  who  influences  you.?  He's  quite  mad. 
You  can  see  madness  in  those  burning  eyes 
of  his.  When  he  looks  at  me,  I  get  cold.  He 
frightens  me,  and  not  a  nice  sort  of  fright, 
either.  He  scares  me  half  to  death.  Oh,  I 
wish  you'd  leave  him  and  Ida  to  get  on  as 
they  please,  and  never  see  either  of  them  again. 
I  am  sure  you  would  be  a  great  deal  better, 
and  a  great  deal  sweeter,  and  I  know  I'd 


220  THE  BOMB 

just  love  you  for  it.  Come!  Won't  you? — 
for  my  sake  ?"  and  she  knelt  down  at  my  feet, 
and  threw  herself  against  my  knees,  and  put 
up  her  hands  and  drew  my  head  down.  What 
a  temptress  she  was,  and  what  a  face!  I 
could  not  help  taking  her  in  my  arms;  I  lifted 
her  up,  held  her  close  to  me,  body  to  body. 
Dear  God!  Was  I  to  have  nothing.^  The 
next  moment  the  other  thought,  the  awful 
one  came,  of  what  I  had  promised  to  do. 

I  got  angry,  and  putting  her  from  me,  rose. 
At  once  she  stood  opposite  me. 

"What  is  it.^"  she  asked  sharply.  "I  know 
there  is  something.  What  is  it.^  Tell  me, 
tell  me,  at  once,"  all  the  old  imperiousness  in 
tone  and  manner.  Love  may  soften;  but  it 
does  not  really  change  us. 

I  sat  down  on  the  sofa  and  shook  my  head. 
"There  is  nothing,  dear;  but  that  I  love  you 
terribly,  and  must  not  yield  to  it." 

"Silly  boy,"  she  said,  coming  over  and 
seating  herself  beside  me,  and  putting  her 
arm  round  my  neck.  "You  silly  boy.  You 
shall  do  whatever  you  want  to,  and  you  shall 
not  be  annoyed  by  anyone."  And  she  threw 
herself  down  on  the  couch.  As  I  turned  to  her 
she  said,  "I  will  just  kiss  you,  little  bird- 
kisses."  (When  we  first  knew  each  other 
I  used  to  call  her  kisses  bird-kisses,  because 
she  kissed  me,  I  said,  like  a  bird  pecking  a 


THE  BOMB  221 

fruit.)  But  now  she  knew  better,  and  her 
lips  dwelt  on  mine. 

What  was  I  to  do.?  Was  ever  a  man  in 
such  a  position,  torn  two  ways.?  Every  time 
she  touched  me  I  went  mad;  nay  mouth 
parched  with  desire;  I  trembled  from  head  to 
foot,  and  yet  I  knew  I  must  not  let  myself  go. 
It  would  be  dastardly. 

"After  all,  why  not.?"  I  asked  myself. 
"Why  not.?  Why  not.?"  My  blood  raced 
in  my  veins,  so  that  I  was  incapable  of  reason. 

I  put  my  hands  on  her,  and  she  smiled  in 
my  eyes  that  divine  smile  of  passionate  aban- 
donment. As  I  touched  the  round  limbs  and 
felt  the  warm  flesh,  her  hands  slid  round  my 
neck,  and  drew  down  my  lips  to  hers.  While 
she  thrilled  under  my  touch  and  her  lips  clung 
to  mine,  I  was  suddenly  broken  with  love  and 
admiration.  I  could  not  accept  the  sacrifice; 
I  dared  not  leave  that  exquisite  child  with 
the  risk  and  suffering;  I  could  not.  But  I 
would  kiss  and  caress  her  to  the  Hmit  of  my 
resolve,  and  I  did.  .  .  . 

At  length  I  felt  my  purpose  melting. 

"Oh,  Elsie,"  I  groaned,  "help  me,  help  me. 
It's  not  fair,  and  I  must  be  fair  to  you." 

She  got  up  at  once,  and  shook  her  skirts 
straight,  with  the  old  proud  gesture  that  I 
knew  so  well. 

"Your  wish  shall  be  done,"  she  said:  "but 


222  THE  BOMB 

there  is  something  I  do  not  understand,  which 
makes  my  heart  ache.  Can't  you  tell  me. 
Boy?"  and  she  looked  right  into  my  eyes. 

"There  is  nothing  to  tell,"  I  said,  "sweet 
mine. 

She  shook  her  head  contemptuously. 

"I  swear,  Elsie,  that  if  I  restrain  myself  it 
is  simply  for  your  sake.  You  must  believe 
me,  heart's  delight!  you  must." 

"I  will  try  to,"  she  said.  "Good-bye,  Boy." 

"Are  you  going?"  I  cried  in  wildest  despair, 
stretching  my  hands  out  to  her.  *'Good 
God!  Good  God!  I  can't  let  you  go!"  and 
my  heart  choked  me. 

Was  I  never  to  see  her  again?  to  lose  that 
bewitching  sweet  face?  Never  to  hold  the 
exquisite  figure  in  my  arms  again,  never  to 
hear  her  voice  in  my  ears;  never  again?  The 
tears  gushed  from  my  eyes. 

"There,"  she  cried,  putting  her  arms  about 
me,  "that  is  the  first  time  you  have  been  ab- 
solutely yourself  since  I  have  been  in  the  room. 
That  look  and  cry  convince  me  that  you  still 
love  me,  and  I'm  glad,  heart-glad." 

"How  could  you  ever  doubt  it!"  I  cried. 

She  shook  her  head.  "Oh,  Boy;  I'm  con- 
vinced now;  but  what  has  altered  you — what 
is  it  ?  I  cannot  understand.  There  is  some- 
thing." 

"You  will  understand  one  day,  sweetheart," 


THE  BOMB  223 

I  said,  trying  to  smile.  ''You  will  understand 
that  I  love  you  with  my  whole  heart,  that  I 
have  never  loved  any  other  woman,  that  I 
shall  never  love  another";  and  we  were  in 
each  other's  arms  again,  and  our  faces  were 
wet  with  our  tears. 

''Now  I  am  going,"  she  said,  dashing  the 
tears  from  her  eyes,  *' going  at  once.  Good- 
bye, Boy."  At  the  door  she  turned  and  came 
back  quickly,  took  my  hands  and  kissed  them 
one  by  one,  and  then  put  them  against  her 
little   firm  breasts. 

"I  love  you.  Boy,  with  all  my  heart,  my 
boy!"  and  she  was  gone. 

I  dropped  into  the  chair,  unable  to  restrain 
myself.  The  waters  of  bitterness  seemed  to 
go  over  my  head.  Nothing  mattered  now; 
nothing  could  ever  matter  after  this,  nothing. 
The  pain  was  too  bitter.  I  dared  not  think 
of  her,  my  lost  love.  .  .  . 

I  felt  I  must  not  give  way  like  that;  I  must 
be  a  man  and  pull  myself  together;  but  how? 
There  was  one  infallible  means.  I  called 
back  to  memory  the  image  of  the  man  shot 
on  the  vacant  lot,  and  gasping  out  his  blood 
as  he  cried  to  his  wife  and  children.  I  re- 
minded myself  of  the  poor  girl  we  took  to  the 
hospital,  the  sweet  face  of  her  growing  greyer 
and  greyer.  I  thought  of  the  man  blinded 
by  the  explosion,  and  his  pathetic  stumblings; 


224  THE  BOMB 

the  horrible,  maimed  creature  proud  of  his 
phosphorous  poisoning;  the  great  Swiss  giant, 
writhing  about  like  a  wounded  worm;  and  my 
tears  dried  of  themselves,  with  indignation  and 
rage,  and  I  was  ready.  With  one  big  sigh 
for  all  that  was  Elsie  stifled  in  my  throat,  I 
set  my  face  towards  reality,  and  as  I  pulled 
myself  up  out  of  the  chair  with  the  hot  blood 
running  through  me  I  heard  eight  o'clock 
strike,  and  a  moment  later  those  swift,  steady 
steps  on  the  street  outside,  Lingg's  steps.  I 
took  a  deep  breath.  Thank  God!  I  was 
ready! 


CHAPTER  IX 

AS    Lingg    came    into    the  room  and  our 
-^^     hands  met  and   he  looked  into  my  eyes 
with  that  steady  light  in  his,  I  was  glad,  jubi- 
lant that  I  was  ready.     With  a  great  thrill  I 
felt  for  the  first  time  that  I  could  meet  him  as 
an  equal.     Death  has  this  strange  power  over  / 
men,  that  when  you  are  willing  to  walk  within  j 
his  shadow  you  feel  yourself  the  equal  of  any-  \ 
thing  that  lives. 

"I  see,"  said  Lingg  quietly,  "you've  made 
up  your  mind.  I  was  hoping  you  had  changed." 

"I  have  packed,  and  am  ready,"  I  remarked, 
as  equal  to  equal  now.  He  went  past  me  to 
the  window,  and  stood  looking  out  for  a  min- 
ute or  so.  I  went  over  to  him;  he  turned, 
and  our  eyes  met. 

"I  often  wonder,  Rudolph,"  he  said,  putting 
his  hand  on  my  shoulder,  "whether  this  world 
of  ours  will  be  a  success  or  a  failure.  .  .  .  After 
all,  it's  quite  possible  that  man  will  never 
realize  the  best  in  him.  There  must  have 
been  countless  failures  before  in  other  worlds; 
why  should  this  mud-ball  of  ours  bring  it 
to  a  consummation  .^"  And  then  the  return. 
"Yet  why  not.?    It's  always  young,  the  old 


226  THE  BOIVIB 

world,  and  breeding  youth;  always  trying! 
Why  should  we  fail  ?  In  any  case,  the  attempt 
is  something — something,  too,  the  motive!" 
And  his  eyes  lit  up;  I  smiled.  His  intimate 
kindness  to  me,  the  comradeship  even  in  his 
doubts  gave  the  supreme  touch  to  my  resolu- 
tion. 

"Have  you  the  bomb?" 

"Here  it  is,"  he  said,  and  took  it  out  of  his 
right-hand  pocket.  He  always  wore  short 
coats,  generally  double-breasted,  with  large 
pockets.  The  bomb  was  not  larger  than  an 
orange;  but  it  was  ten  times  the  size  of  the 
bullet  that  he  had  tried  on  the  lake,  and  I 
knew  its  power  must  be  enormous.  On  one 
side  of  it  there  hung  out  a  little  piece  of  tape- 
like stuff. 

"What's  that?"  I  asked,  pointing  to  it. 

"This  bomb  has  a  double  action,"  he  said; 
"if  you  pull  that  tape  it  will  set  fire  to  some- 
thing inside;  the  explosion  will  then  take 
place  in  a  third  of  a  minute,  exactly  twenty 
seconds,  so  that  you  should  pull  it  first,  then 
wait  five  or  ten  seconds,  and  then  throw  the 
bomb;  but  it  will  also  explode  on  impact,  so  be 
careful  of  it." 

"What's  it  made  of?"  I  asked,  taking  it  in 
my  hand.     It  was  surprisingly  heavy. 

"Leaden  piping  on  the  outside,"  he  replied; 
"lead  is  so  easy  to  work.     The  composition 


THE  BOMB  227 

inside  is  a  discovery  of  mine — a  chance  find." 

"I'll  put  ii  in  my  trousers'  pocket,"  I  said, 
"because  the/e  nothing  can  hit  it,  and  it  will 
be  held  tightly,  so  that  I  can  pull  the  tape  when 
I  like.     I  suppose  it  won't  burn  outwardly?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"You  may  see  the  spark  when  you  throw 
it;  but  there  will  be  nothing  to  burn  your 
clothes,  if  that's  what  you  mean." 

There  was  a  feverish  haste  on  me.  I  was 
impatient  to  have  done  with  the  work,  to  get 
it  over. 

"Hadn't  we  better  go  to  the  meeting  now  ?" 
I  asked. 

Lingg  was  as  quiet  as  ever,  and  spoke  just 
as  slowly  as  usual. 

"If  you  will,"  he  said;  "it  is  a  mile  to  the 
Haymarket,  and  the  meeting  is  called  for 
nine  o'clock;  they  won't  begin  till  eight  or 
ten  minutes  past,  and  even  if  the  police  break 
up  the  meeting  they  won't  do  it  before  nine- 
thirty  or  a  quarter  to  ten.  We  have  lots  of 
time.  .  .  .  Before  we  go,  Rudolph,  I  want  you 
to  promise  me  one  thing.  I  want  you  to 
escape;  it  is  part  of  our  plan  for  spreading 
terror  that  the  thrower  of  the  first  bomb 
should  go  scot-free.  Nothing  spreads  terror 
like  sequence  and  success.  I  want  you  to 
promise  that  whatever  happens  you  will  keep 
away,  and  not  give  yourself  up." 


228  THE  BOMB 

"I  promise,"  I  replied  hastily.  "Shall  I 
throw  it  in  any  case?"  I  asked,  feverishly 
passing  my  tongue  over  my  diied  lips,  and 
longing,  I  suppose,  for  even  the  chance  of  a 
respite. 

"If  the  police  do  not  interfere,"  he  said, 
"we  are  too  glad  to  keep  quiet;  but  if  they 
come  to  break  up  a  quiet  meeting,  if  they 
draw  their  clubs  and  begin  to  bludgeon,  I 
should  throw  it;  and  if  you  can  remember 
as  you  throw  it,  throw  yourself  down  on  your 
hands  and  knees,  too;  the  shock  wdll  be  tre- 
mendous." 

"Shall  we  go,  then?"  I  asked,  and  turned 
to  look  for  the  grip;  but  Lingg  had  picked  it 
up.  Of  a  sudden  he  put  it  down  again  and 
put  his  hand  on  my  shoulder;  his  eyes  on 
mine  were  full  of  kindness. 

"There's  time,  Rudolph,"  he  said,  "even 
now,  to  turn  back.  I  cannot  bear  to  think 
of  your  being  in  it.  Leave  it  to  me.  Trust 
me;  it  will  be  better." 

With  that  strange  feeling  of  equality  still 
thrilling  in  me,  I  exclaimed,  "No,  no;  you 
mistake  me.  I  am  more  than  willing;  all 
those  injured  and  murdered  people  are  call- 
ing to  me.  Don't  let's  talk,  man.  My  mind 
is  made  up.  From  head  to  foot  I  am  one 
purpose." 

He  threw  back  his  head,  then  picked  'up 


THE  BOMB  229 

my  grip,  and  we  left  the  room.  As  we  passed 
through  the  Httle  shop,  the  boy  told  us  that 
Engel  had  gone  to  the  meeting  half  an  hour 
before,  and  we  set  off  at  a  good  round  pace. 
So  wrought  up  was  I,  so  excited,  I  had  not 
noticed  that  the  beautiful  day  was  all  over- 
cast, that  a  thunder-storm  was  clouding  up, 
till  Lingg  drew  my  attention  to  it. 

A  minute  afterwards,  as  it  seems  to  me  now, 
we  had  reached  our  goal;  we  were  in  Des- 
plaines  Street,  between  Lake  Street  and  Ran- 
dolph Street.  Desplaines  Street  is  a  mean 
thoroughfare  on  the  west  side,  three  or  four 
hundred  yards  from  the  river,  and  fully  half 
a  mile  from  the  edge  of  the  business  centre 
downtown.  The  Haymarket,  as  the  place 
was  afterwards  called,  is  nearly  a  hundred 
yards  away.  As  we  came  up  from  the  south 
we  passed  the  Desplaines  Street  police 
station,  presided  over  by  Inspector  Bonfield; 
there  was  already  a  crowd  of  police  at  the 
door. 

'*They  mean  business,"  said  Lingg,  "to- 
night, and  so  do  we." 

When  we  got  to  the  outskirts  of  the  meeting 
we  saw  the  mayor  of  the  city,  with  one  or  two 
officials;  the  mayor  was  an  elderly  man  called 
Carter  Harrison.  He  had  been  asked  to 
prohibit  the  meeting,  but  was  unwilling  to 
interfere  with  what  might  be  a  lawful  assembly; 


230  THE  BOMB 

he  attended  in  person  to  prevent  any  incite- 
ment to  rioting. 

The  speakers'  stand  was  a  mere  truck-wag- 
on, placed  where  a  blind  alley  intersected 
the  street,  in  the  centre  of  the  block.  We 
were  at  the  rear  of  the  building  occupied  by 
the  Crane  Brothers'  great  elevator  factory. 
I  should  think  two  or  three  thousand  people 
were  already  gathered  together. 

Spies  had  finished  speaking  as  w^e  came  up. 
He  was  followed  by  Parsons,  who  rose  to  the 
height  of  the  argument  if  ever  a  man  did. 
He  began  by  asking  the  crowd  to  be  quite 
orderly;  he  assured  them  that  if  they  kept 
order,  and  simply  gave  expression  to  their 
grievances,  the  American  people  would  hear 
them  with  sympathy,  and  would  see  that  they 
had  fair  play.  He  really  believed  this  clap- 
trap. He  went  on  to  say  that  their  grievances 
were  tendble;  unarmed  men,  women,  and 
children  had  been  shot  dow^n.  Why  w^ere 
they  shot.^  he  asked,  and  then  began  his  re- 
form speech. 

The  mayor  listened  to  everything,  and 
evidently  saw  nothing  in  the  utterances  to 
object  to.  "Parsons's  speech,"  he  said  after- 
wards, "was  a  good  political  speech."  After 
Parsons  had  made  an  end,  the  Englishman, 
Samuel  Fielden,  with  his  bushy  beard,  stood 
up   and   began   to   prose.     Some   rain-drops 


THE  BOMB  231 

fell,  a  lull  came  in  the  rising  wind;  darkness 
began  to  overshadow  us.  Evidently  the  storm 
was  at  hand. 

The  crowd  began  to  drift  away  at  the  edges. 
I  was  alone  and  curiously  watchful.  I  saw 
the  mayor  and  the  officials  move  off  towards 
the  business  part  of  the  town.  It  looked  for 
a  few  minutes  as  if  everything  was  going  to 
pass  over  in  peace;  but  I  was  not  relieved.  I 
could  hear  my  own  heart  beating,  and  sudden- 
ly I  felt  something  in  the  air;  it  was  sentient 
with  expectancy.  I  slowly  turned  my  head. 
I  was  on  the  very  outskirts  of  the  crowd,  and 
as  I  turned  I  saw  that  Bonfield  had  marched 
out  his  police,  and  was  minded  to  take  his 
own  way  with  the  meeting  now  the  mayor 
had  left.  I  felt  personal  antagonism  stiffen 
my  muscles.  It  grew  darker  and  darker 
every  moment.  Suddenly  there  came  a  flash, 
and  then  a  peal  of  thunder.  At  the  end  of 
the  flash,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  I  saw  the  white 
clubs  falling,  saw  the  police  striking  down  the 
men  running  along  the  side-walk.  At  once 
my  mind  was  made  up.  I  put  my  left  hand 
on  the  outside  of  my  trousers  to  hold  the  bomb 
tight,  and  my  right  hand  into  the  pocket,  and 
drew  the  tape.  I  heard  a  little  rasp.  I  began 
to  count  slowly,  ''One,  two,  three,  four,  five, 
six,  seven";  as  I  got  to  seven  the  police  were 
quite   close   to   me,   bludgeoning   every    one 


232  THE  BOMB 

furiously.  Two  or  three  of  the  foremost  had 
drawn  their  revolvers.  The  crowd  were  fly- 
ing in  all  directions.  Suddenly  there  was  a 
shot,  and  then  a  dozen  shots,  all,  it  seemed  to 
me,  fired  by  the  police.     Rage  blazed  in  me. 

I  took  the  bomb  out  of  my  pocket,  careless 
whether  I  was  seen  or  not,  and  looked  for  the 
right  place  to  throw  it;  then  I  hurled  it  over 
my  shoulder  high  in  the  air,  towards  the 
middle  of  the  police,  and  at  the  same  moment 
I  stumbled  forward,  just  as  if  I  had  fallen, 
throwing  myself  on  my  hands  and  face,  for  I 
had  seen  the  spark.  It  seemed  as  if  I  had 
been  on  my  hands  for  an  eternity,  when  I 
was  crushed  to  the  ground,  and  my  ears  split 
with  the  roar.  I  scrambled  to  my  feet  again, 
gasping.  Men  were  thrown  down  in  front 
of  me,  and  were  getting  up  on  their  hands.  I 
heard  groans  and  cries,  and  shrieks  behind 
me.  I  turned  round;  as  I  turned  a  strong 
arm  was  thrust  through  mine,  and  I  heard 
Lingg  say— 

"Come,  Rudolph,  this  way";  and  he  drew 
me  to  the  side-walk,  and  we  walked  past 
where  the  police  had  been. 

"Don't  look,"  he  whispered  suddenly; 
"don't  look." 

But  before  he  spoke  I  had  looked,  and  what 
I  saw  will  be  before  my  eyes  till  I  die.  The 
street  was  one  shambles;  in  the  very  centre 


THE  BOMB  233 

of  it  a  great  pit  yawned,  and  round  it  men 
lying,  or  pieces  of  men,  in  every  direction,  and 
close  to  me,  near  the  side-walk  as  I  passed,  a 
leg  and  foot  torn  off,  and  near  by  two  huge 
pieces  of  bleeding  red  meat,  skewered  together 
with  a  thigh-bone.  My  soul  sickened;  my 
senses  left  me;  but  Lingg  held  me  up  with 
superhuman   strength,   and   drew   me   along. 

"Hold  yourself  up,  Rudolph,"  he  whispered; 
*'come  on,  man,"  and  the  next  moment  we 
had  passed  it  all,  and  I  clung  to  him,  trembling 
like  a  leaf.  When  we  got  to  the  end  of  the 
block  I  realized  that  I  was  wet  through  from 
head  to  foot,  as  if  I  had  been  plunged  in  cold 
water. 

"I  must  stop,"  I  gasped.  "I  cannot  walk, 
Lingg." 

"Nonsense,"  he  said;  "take  a  drink  of 
this,"  and  he  thrust  a  flask  of  brandy  into  my 
hand.  The  brandy  I  poured  down  my  throat 
set  my  heart  beating  again,  allowed  me  to 
breathe,  and  I  walked  on  with  him. 

"  How  you  are  shaking,"  he  said.  "  Strange, 
you  neurotic  people;  you  do  everything  per- 
fectly, splendidly,  and  then  break  down  like 
women.  Come,  I  am  not  going  to  leave  you; 
but  for  God's  sake  throw  off  that  shaken, 
white  look.     Drink  some  more." 

I  tried  to;  but  the  flask  was  empty.  He 
put  it  back  in  his  pocket. 


234  THE  BOMB 

"Here  is  the  bottle,"  he  said.  "I  have 
brought  enough;  but  we  must  get  to  the  depot." 

We  saw  fire-engines  with  poHce  on  them, 
galloping  like  madmen  in  the  direction  whence 
we  had  come.  The  streets  were  crowded 
with  people,  talking,  gesticulating,  like  actors. 
Every  one  seemed  to  know  of  the  bomb  al- 
ready, and  to  be  talking  about  it.  I  noticed 
that  even  here,  half  a  mile  away,  the  pave- 
ment was  covered  with  pieces  of  glass;  all 
the  windows  had  been  broken  by  the  ex- 
plosion. 

As  we  came  in  front  of  the  depot,  just  be- 
fore we  passed  into  the  full  glare  of  the  arc- 
lamps,  Lingg  said — 

"Let  me  look  at  you,"  and  as  he  let  go  my 
arm,  I  almost  fell;  my  legs  were  like  German 
sausages;  they  felt  as  if  they  had  no  bones  in 
them,  and  would  bend  in  any  direction;  in 
spite  of  every  efiPort  they  would  shake. 

"Come,  Rudolph,"  he  said,  "we'll  stop 
and  talk;  but  you  must  come  to  yourself. 
Take  another  drink,  and  think  of  nothing.  I 
will  save  you;  you  are  too  good  to  lose. 
Come,  dear  friend,  don't  let  them  crow  over 
us." 

My  heart  seemed  to  be  in  my  mouth,  but  I 
swallowed  it  down.  I  took  another  swig  of 
brandy,  and  then  a  long  drink  of  it.  It  might 
have  been  water  for  all  I  tasted;  but  it  seemed 


THE  BOMB  235 

to  do  me  some  little  good.  In  a  minute  or  so 
I  had  got  hold  of  myself. 

"I'm  all  right,"  I  said;  "what  is  there  to  do 
now? 

"Simply  to  go  through  the  depot,"  he  said, 
"as  if  there  were  nothing  the  matter,  and  take 
the  train." 

I  pulled  myself  together,  and  we  entered 
the  depot;  but  when  we  came  in  sight  of  the 
barrier  shutting  off  the  train  for  New  York, 
we  saw  that  some  news  must  have  got  through, 
for  already  there  were  two  policemen  stand- 
ing beside  the  usual  ticket-collectors.  Lingg, 
with  his  hawk's  eyes,  saw  them  first,  a  hun- 
dred yards  away. 

"You'll  have  to  speak,  Rudolph,"  he  said. 
"If  you're  not  able  to,  we'll  go  back  and  take 
the  train  outside  Chicago.  Your  name  is 
Willie  Roberts;  but  you  will  have  to  speak 
for  us  both,  because  your  accent  is  so  much 
better  than  mine.  Can  you.^"  (I  nodded.) 
"Now,  your  very  best,"  he  said,  as  we  reached 
the  barrier. 

The  next  moment,  "Where  for?"  called 
out  the  official. 

"New  York,"  I  answered,  and  stopped  in 
front  of  him,  while  Lingg  produced  my  ticket. 

"Your  name?"  he  said. 

"On  the  ticket,"  I  replied,  yawning,  "Wil- 
lie Roberts." 


236  THE  BOMB 

"Thought  you  were  one  of  those  Dutch- 
men," he  said,  laughing.  "There  has  been 
an  explosion,  or  something,  on  the  East  Side, 
hasn't  there  ?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  returned;  "but  there'll 
be  no  peace,  I  guess,  till  we've  had  a  good 
scrap." 

"That's  so,"  he  said,  and  we  all  laughed. 

The  next  moment  he  had  checked  my  tic- 
ket, and  handed  the  long  strip  back  to  me. 
I  said — 

"My  friend  is  just  coming  with  me;  he'll 
be  back  in  a  minute." 

Lingg  bowed  to  him,  smiling,  and  took  my 
arm  as  we  went  on. 

"Splendid,"  he  said;  "nobody  could  have 
done  it  better.  They  are  without  a  trace  of 
suspicion,  and  it  is  rather  well  for  them  that 
they  did  not  suspect." 

"Why.?"  I  asked. 

He  looked  at  me  with  a  quizzical  smile  on 
his  face. 

"Because,"  he  said,  "I  have  another  bomb 
in  my  pocket,  and  they  should  not  have  taken 
either  of  us  alive." 

I  don't  know  why,  but  the  mere  mention  of 
another  bomb  set  me  trembling  again.  Again 
I  could  hear  the  infernal  roar;  I  shivered 
from  head    to  foot,  and  my  heart  stopped. 

How  I  got  into  the  train  I  don't  know. 


THE  BOMB  237 

Lingg  must  have  almost  lifted  me  in;  but  when 
I  came  to  myself  I  was  in  a  first-class  carriage, 
in  the  corner.  Lingg  had  put  my  grip  in 
front  of  me  on  the  seat,  and  was  sitting  beside 
me.  Suddenly  I  felt  deadly  sick;  I  told  him 
so.  He  took  me  out  to  the  cabinet,  and  I  was 
sick  as  I  have  never  been  sick  in  my  life, 
throwing  up  again  and  again  and  again,  feel- 
ing the  while  wretchedly  weak  and  ill,  as  if 
every  atom  of  strength  had  been  sucked  out 
of  me.  He  gave  me  a  drink  of  cold  water, 
and  then  some  water  with  a  dash  of  brandy 
in  it,  and  threw  open  the  window,  and  soon 
I  felt  a  little  better. 

'*I  cannot  sit  up,  Lingg.  I'm  sure  to  give 
myself  away.  I'm  so  weak  and  ill;  I  don't 
know  how  or  why,"  and  all  broken  up  I  began 
to   cry   weakly. 

"That's  all  right,  Rudolph,"  said  Lingg 
gently.  "I  will  sit  with  you  till  you're  better. 
Can  you  be  alone  for  five  minutes  while  I 
send  a  telegram.^" 

"Yes,"  I  replied;  "but  I  wish  you  wouldn't 

go." 

"All  right,"  he  said  in  the  cheeriest  tone. 
"I  will  sit  with  you  and  write  the  telegram; 
but  if  you  show  yourself  ill,  people  will  remark 
you.  Pull  your  soft  hat  down  over  your 
forehead,  and  we'll  go  back  to  your  seat;  I'll 
write  the  telegram  there,  and  remember,  I'm 


238  THE  BOMB 

going  to  sit  with  you  till  you  are  all  right.  All 
I  ask  you  to  do  is  to  speak  when  need  is, 
because  my  wretched  accent  will  give  us  away 
as  Germans.  Say  vou've  had  too  much  to 
drink." 

A  few  minutes  afterwards  the  train  started. 
I  told  the  conductor  as  he  passed  that  my 
friend  was  coming  to  the  next  station  with  me, 
and  gave  him  a  dollar  bill.  I  said  we  wanted 
to  talk;  we  had  not  met  for  a  long  time;  I  was 
just  passing  through  Chicago,  and  we  had  had 
a  drink  together. 

I  noticed  that  Lingg  had  opened  the  window 
on  my  side;  the  fresh  air  and  the  rain  were 
beating  on  my  head  and  face.  In  a  few  min- 
utes I  began  to  feel  better,  and  strange  to  say, 
almost  as  soon  as  I  began  to  get  better  I 
became  conscious  of  being  inordinately 
hungry. 

"I  am  famished,"  I  said  to  Lingg.  "Shiv- 
ering with  cold  and  famished;  but  I'm  all 
right." 

"I'll  get  you  a  basin  of  soup,"  he  said,  "at 
the  next  station.  I'm  glad  you're  all  right. 
Thank  God,  the  colour  is  coming  back  to 
your  cheeks;  we've  had  luck." 

"I'm  ashamed,"  I  said,  "breaking  down 
like  this,  and  putting  you  in  danger." 

"Nonsense,"  he  returned.  "Don't  think 
that.     You're  the  more  to  be  honoured  for 


THE  BOMB  239 

having  done  what  you  did,  in  spite  of  the  body's 
weakness." 

I  felt  better  after  that. 

All  this  time  there  were  only  a  couple  of 
women  in  the  car,  and  they  were  at  the  other 
end  of  it;  they  did  not  like  the  open  window,  I 
suppose. 

In  twenty  minutes  we  stopped,  and  Lingg 
got  out  and  got  me  a  basin  of  soup ;  as  soon  as 
I  had  taken  it,  I  felt  stronger.  I  realized  then 
that  I  had  a  terrible,  racking  headache,  and 
was  very  weary. 

"Go  to  sleep,"  said  Lingg,  when  I  told 
him,  and  he  shut  the  window,  and  settled  the 
grip  in  front  of  me  so  that  I  could  put  my  feet 
on  it.  "Go  to  sleep;  I  will  sit  by  you,"  and 
in  a  moment,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  I  was  asleep. 
When  I  woke,  two  or  three  hours  afterwards, 
the  train  was  stopping  again.  We  had  just 
reached . 

"Do  you  feel  better.^"  Lingg  asked.  "I 
ought  to  get  out  here,  if  you  can  goon  alone; 
or  shall  I  stay  the  night  with  you .?" 

"I  am  quite  well,  now,"  I  replied  bravely. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "y^^  ^^^^  reach  New  York 
in  thirty  hours,  and  you  sail  the  next  morning; 
your  berth  is  taken  on  the  Cunarder,  'Scotia,' 
second  cabin,  still  under  the  name  of  Will 
Roberts;  don't  miss  her,  and  get  off  at  Liver- 
pool.    Ida  will  communicate  with  you  at  the 


240  THE  BOMB 

post  office  in  Liverpool  and  Cardiff,  and  Will 
Roberts  can  write  to  her  to  Altona,  under  the 
name  of  Jane  Teller.  Do  you  understand? 
Here  in  this  book  everything's  put  down,  to- 
gether with  a  code  which  I  have  made  out 
for  you;  the  book  to  which  the  code  refers  is 
here,  too.  Nobody  on  earth  can  read  that 
script;  but  if  I  were  you  I  should  write  nothing 
for  some  months,  not  for  many  months  if 
things  go  badly;  but  you  will  be  the  best  judge 
of  that.  Remember,  prudence  is  always  best 
in  case  you  are  in  doubt,  and  remember,  too, 
I  have  your  promise  to  escape;  you  must  not 
be  caught;  you  will  remember?" 

I  nodded.  "We  did  right,  didn't  we?"  I 
asked  weakly. 

"Sure,  Rudolph,"  he  answered.  "Sure. 
Have  no  doubt.  I  am  going  to  tread  the 
same  path,  you  can  bet  on  that."  His  eyes 
were  shining  like  a  god's. 

"I  have  no  doubt  of  you,"  I  said;  "but  I  be- 
gin to  doubt  whether  the  path  is  the  right  one." 

"That's  because  you  are  shaken  and  ill," 
he  replied  gravely.  "If  you  were  well,  you 
would  not  doubt.  Think  of  what  they  did; 
the  giri  they  shot,  and  the  little  boy!  And 
now  good-bye,  dear  friend,  good-bye!"  Once 
again,  and  for  the  last  time,  we  kissed. 

The  next  moment  he  had  left  the  train,  and 
I  was  alone.     I  could  not  be  alone!    I  sprang 


THE  BOMB  241 

up  and  hurried  to  the  door  to  call  him;  the 
deadly  cold  came  back  on  me,  but  I  pulled 
myself  together.  After  all,  to  call  him  back 
would  endanger  him  and  Ida!  I  would  not. 
I  stood  at  the  door  and  looked  after  him,  saw 
him  striding  down  the  platform,  the  same 
swift,  silent  stride.  I  noticed  the  broad 
shoulders,  the  strong  figure.  I  took  a  full 
breath  and  went  back  to  my  seat.  It  was 
half-past  twelve  o'clock.  A  new  day,  I  said 
to  myself.     My  God!  a  new  day.  .  .  . 

In  a  few  minutes  the  conductor  came  in 
and  asked  me  if  I  would  not  like  to  sleep. 

"I  have  made  you  up  the  second  berth 
from  here,"  he  said,  "number  10;  your  friend 
thought  you  had  better  not  be  disturbed  be- 
fore.    Been  ill,  ain't  you.?" 

I  was  passing  through  Chicago,  I  said,  and 
we  had  had  a  big  dinner,  and  I  had  taken  too 
much  to  drink;  I  had  not  seen  my  friend  for  a 
long  time. 

**I  guessed  that  was  it,"  he  replied.  "I 
smelt  the  brandy.  It  isn't  good  to  get  out  on 
the  bust  like  that,  unless  you  are  accustomed 
to  soak.  I  nearly  killed  myself  a  while  back. 
I  didn't  drink  very  much,  either,  half  a  bottle 
of  Bourbon,  I  guess;  but  I  just  got  up  and 
wanted  to  fight  everybody.  I  was  mad  drunk; 
I'd  have  fought  an  elevated  railroad,  if  it  had 
come  near  me,  I  would." 


242  THE  BOMB 

The  common  talk  brought  me  back  to  the 
common  everyday  life;  did  me  infinite  good. 

"Sit  down  and  have  a  drink,"  I  said. 

"No,  no!"  he  replied,  shaking  his  head. 
"No,  I  have  sworn  off,  truth!  I  told  the 
missis  I  never  would  agen,  and  I  won't.  .  .  . 
We've  two  children,  two  girls,  one  fair,  and 
t'other  dark.  Ye  never  saw  sich  a  pair  of 
peaches!  I  ain't  going  to  drink  what  ought 
to  go  to  them,  no  sir.  I  only  make  a  hun- 
dred dollars  a  month  at  this  job;  of  course, 
now  and  then  one  gets  a  dollar  from  some 
one  but  they  don't  hand  it  out  easy,  the 
rich.  .  .  . 

"My  wife's  a  daisy  of  a  manager,  but  it 
costs  us  forty  dollars  a  month  to  get  along, 
and  what  with  clothes,  and  rent,  and  taxes, 
we  cannot  save  more  than  thirty  dollars  a 
month,  no  sir;  and  in  twenty  years  that  won't 
be  a  fortune,  will  it,  not  for  two  of  'em  ?  The 
purtiest  children  ever  you  see.  Here  they 
are"  (and  as  he  spoke  he  took  out  his  pocket- 
book  and  showed  me  the  photographs). 
"There's  Joon,  and  there's  Jooly.  We  call 
'em  like  that  because  they  was  born  in  those 
months.     Ain't  they  cute! — What?" 

Of  course,  I  praised  the  children  though  he 
needed  no  encouragement. 

"Their  mother  is  a  Kaintucky  woman,  I'm 
from  about  here  myself — a  hoosier.     You're 


THE  BOMB  243 

on  the  road,  ain't  you?  In  dry  goods,  I 
guess,  from  the  grip?" 

''Yes,"  I  replied;  "going  back  to  New 
York.     Come  out  again  in  a  week." 

"I  thought  so,"  he  said;  "I  sized  ye  up 
right  the  first  moment  I  seed  ye." 

The  bell  rang  and  he  had  to  go  off  and 
attend  to  his  duties;  but  not  before  I  told  him 
to  call  me  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  bring  me  coffee,  as  I  felt  real  bad.  He 
said  he  would,  and  I  crawled  into  my  bunk 
and  tried  to  go  to  sleep.  At  first  it  seemed 
impossible;  but  I  put  my  whole  resolution  to 
the  matter.  I  must  not  think,  I  said  to  my- 
self, I  must  sleep,  and  in  order  to  sleep,  as 
Lingg  said,  I  must  think  of  something  else. 
But  my  brain  seemed  empty,  and  whenever 
I  was  alone  there  was  the  spark  against  the 
sky  and  I  heard  the  roar,  and  saw  that  ghast- 
ly sight.  Then  I  thought  of  Elsie,  but  that 
tore  my  heart.  No;  I  would  not  think  of  the 
past  .... 

At  last  I  found  the  way;  I  would  think  of 
the  conductor's  two  children;  the  dark  one, 
and  the  fair  one.  "The  purtiest  children  in 
Buffalo,"  the  one  seven  years  old  and  the 
other  five,  and  their  mother,  too,  who  was  a 
daisy  of  a  manager,  and  the  father  saving 
and  working.  The  pretty  "peaches."  They 
seemed  to  be  anything  but  pretty  in  the  pho- 


244  THE  BOMB 

tographs;  yet  the  father's  praise  made  them 
beautiful  to  me  —  and  I  remembered  no 
more. 

The  cheerful  conductor  woke  me  up  in  the 
morning  with  the  coffee,  and  as  he  woke  me, 
I  started  up  and  struck  my  head  against  the 
top  berth,  and  fell  back,  shaking. 

"Good  God!"  I  cried;  "how  you  startled 


me 


"An  over-night  drunk  on  brandy  is  the 
damnedest  thing  the  next  morning.  Got  a 
bad  mouth  .^" 

"Awful,"  I  said,  "and  bad  nerves;  I'm  all 
ill,  shaky." 

"Don't  I  know  it,"  he  said.  "You  get  up, 
and  get  into  your  clothes,  and  sit  down  here  by 
the  open  window.  It's  jwst  a  beautiful  day, 
warm  and  sweet;  would  bring  the  dead  to 
life;  and  there's  your  cawfee,  just  as  good 
cawfee  as  you  kin  git  anywhere,  and  the  milk 
in  it'll  do  you  good.  If  I  were  you  I'd  throw 
that  brandy  out  of  the  window." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "my  friend  told  me  to  take 
a  hair  of  the  dog  that  bit  me." 

"Oh,  pshaw!"  he  exclaimed,  "there  ain't 
no  sense  in  that.  A  young  man  like  you'll 
get  better  without  anything." 

"I  think  you're  right,"  I  said,  which  seemed 
to  gratify  him. 

"Have  you  heard  the   noos?"  he  asked.  I 


THE  BOMB  245 

shook  my  head;  I  was  afraid  my  voice  would 
shake. 

"They've  been  throwing  bombs  in  Chicago," 
he  said.  "  Them  damned  foreigners  have  killed 
a  hundred  and  sixty  policemen  in  the  Hay- 
market." 

A  hundred  and  sixty!  I  stared  at  him  and 
Lingg's  word  again,  ''the  Haymarket."  A 
hundred   and   sixty! 

''Good  God!"  I  cried;  "how  awful!" 

"That's  right,"  he  said.  "The  police  have 
made  two  thousand  arrests  this  morning.  I 
guess  they'll  get  the  men  that  threw  the  bomb, 
and  rope's  cheap  in  Chicago.  They'll  make 
'em  all  dance  without  a  floor,  damn  them!" 

"Well,"  I  said,  slipping  out  of  my  berth; 
"I  don't  feel  much  like  dancing." 

"Put  on  your  boots,"  he  said,  "and  come 
to  the  window  here,"  and  I  did  as  I  was  told. 

I  had  stood  the  first  test,  and  already  sleep 
had  renewed  me;  the  blessed  oblivion  had 
knit  up  the  ravelled  sleeve  of  my  thoughts, 
and  I  was  once  more  master  of  myself,  with- 
out any  fear  now;  but  with  an  infinite  regret. . . 

I  would  not  think  of  it,  and  in  order  not  to 
think  of  it,  I  thought  of  Elsie;  but  that  was 
too  bitter  to  me.  What  would  she  think.? 
What  could  she  think  ?  Would  she  try  to  see 
me?  Would  she  guess.?  I  feared  she  would. 
I  dared  rot  Ihink  of  her. 


246  THE  BOMB 

As  soon  as  I  could  I  got  the  conductor  again, 
and  set  him  talking  about  his  children.  All 
I  had  to  do  was  to  put  in  a  "Really  ?*'  or  a  "You 
don't  say!"  at  the  proper  moment,  and  he 
would  go  off  again  at  score,  telling  me  his 
own  history,  and  his  wife's,  and  the  whole 
story  of  the  children — how  he  had  saved 
Jooly  in  whooping  cough  by  giving  her  a  hot 
bath;  how  Joonie  could  walk  before  she  was  a 
year  old;  "yes,  sir,  she  has  the  biggest  legs 
you  ever  saw** — everything.  I  could  write 
their  family  history  now.  .  .  . 

But  I  was  ver}'  sorry  when  he  handed  me 
over  to  the  next  conductor,  a  taciturn  Yankee, 
who  had  hardly  a  word  to  say.  I  feared  the 
small,  grey,  ferretty  eyes  of  him,  so  I  bought 
some  books  in  the  car,  and  set  myself  to  read 
them;  but  I  do  not  know  what  they  were  about 
Still,  they  gave  me  an  occupied  look,  and  kept 
me  from  awkward  questions.  Dinner  time 
came  and  passed,  then  tea  time,  and  then 
time  for  sleep  again,  but  I  hardly  dared  to 
get  into  my  berth.  I  felt  sure  that  I  should 
not  sleep,  and  I  was  right  My  headache 
grew  acute;  the  chunketty-chunk  of  the  train 
hanmiered  on  my  nerves.  I  never  closed 
my  eyes;  but  I  got  peace  by  using  Lingg*s 
formula,  and  st^ulfastly  thinking  of  unim- 
portant things,  and  after  I  had  done  this  a 
certain  number  of  times  I  began  to  get  con- 


THE  BOMB  247 

fidence.  So  long  as  one  is  master  of  one's 
mind,  I  said  to  myself,  one  is  master  of  fate, 
and  except  for  those  dread  hours  from  the 
Haymarket  till  Lingg  left  me,  I  had  never 
lost  my  self-control.  The  train  went  on — 
chunketty-chunk,  chunk,  chunk!  chunketty- 
chunk-chunk!  all  through  the  night.  I  think 
I  saw  every  hour  on  my  watch. 

But  at  last  the  night  waned  to  an  end,  and 
as  soon  as  I  decently  could,  I  got  up,  before 
six  o'clock,  and  saw  the  sun  rise  in  majesty 
over  the  Hudson.  We  were  running  along- 
side the  great  river  to  New  York.  I  got  my 
breakfast  at  seven  o'clock,  and  at  ten  I  was 
out  of  the  train,  without  exciting  the  suspicion 
of  any  one,  I  am  sure.  I  had  played  the  game 
to  the  extent  of  telling  the  taciturn  conductor 
that  I  was  in  the  dry  goods,  and  not  very  rich; 
but  if  he  would  have  a  drink  with  me,  I  should 
be  pleased.     He  shook  his  head. 

"Nary  drink,"  he  said. 

"A  cigar,  then.?"  I  queried. 

"I  don't  mind,"  he  said,  and  I  got  him  a 
fifteen  cent  cigar,  as  if  that  must  be  a  good 
one,  and  he  appreciated  the  attention.  .  .  . 

Back  in  New  York  again!  I  had  only  been 
away  a  little  more  than  a  year;  surely  I  had 
lived  fifty  years  in  the  twelve  months;  a  long 
lifetime!  .  .  . 

I  would  not  go  where  I  was  known.     Where 


248  THE  BOMB 

would  Will  Roberts  go  ? — a  second  rate  hotel. 
I  walked  to  one,  had  a  bath,  and  then  in  my 
room  went  through  all  my  clothes  to  see  if 
there  was  anything  with  my  name  on  it. 
Nothing.  I  wrote  one  or  two  envelopes, 
addressed  to  Will  Roberts,  in  different  hand- 
writings, dirtied  them,  tore  them  at  the  corners, 
shoved  one  in  the  grip,  put  another  in  my 
pocket,  together  with  Lingg's  precious  book, 
which  I  went  through  hurriedly.  I  found  in 
it  a  letter  for  "dear  Will"  which  I  thrust 
into  my  pocket,  to  read  at  leisure.  I  was 
eager  to  get  out  of  the  room  into  the  open 
air,  where  I  could  be  alone  and  at  ease.  I 
took  the  street  car  a  block  or  two  from  the 
hotel,  and  rode  right  out  to  Central  Park, 
three  or  four  miles  away. 

God !  What  a  beautiful  place  it  is.  I  made 
my  way  right  through  the  park  to  Riverside 
Drive,  and  sat  down  looking  over  the  Hudson, 
and  there  I  read  Lingg's  letter:  here  it  is — 

"Dear  Will, 

"When  you  read  this  you  will  be  in  New 
York,  or  perhaps  in  your  own  loved  England 
again,  or  will  it  be  in  the  Welsh  hills  ?  Wher- 
ever it  is,  I  know  that  you  won't  forget  me, 
and  you  must  know  I  shall  never  forget  you. 
We  may  meet  again,  but  it  is  not  likely.  You 
told  me  you  would  make  your  home  on  the 
other  side,  and  never  return,  and  I  think  you 


THE  BOMB  249 

are  right,  for  the  climate  here  doesn't  suit  you. 
I  shall  never  leave  Chicago.  Still,  our  spirits 
have  met,  and  have  been  one  in  purpose  and 
love,  and  that  seems  good  to  me. 

^'Ever    yours, 
"Jack." 

I  went  and  had  lunch  in  an  Italian  restau- 
rant and  bought  the  papers.  There  never  was 
anything  like  them;  they  were  all  filled  with 
the  wildest  lies  of  hatred  and  fear.  For  the 
first  time  I  saw  the  phrase  that  the  police 
were  using  "the  drag-net"  in  Chicago.  They 
had  already  arrested  four  thousand  persons 
on  suspicion;  among  them  Spies  and  Fielden 
and  Fischer,  and  were  searching  for  Parsons. 
Parsons,  it  seems,  had  left  the  town  within  an 
hour  of  the  throwing  of  the  bomb.  The  first 
papers  were  filled  with  the  idea  that  Hie  had 
thrown  the  bomb,  and  the  hunt  after  him  was 
hot  and  fierce. 

I  walked  about  the  whole  of  the  afternoon; 
the  sunlight  and  air  calming  my  nerves.  I 
had  only  glanced  through  the  lying  papers. 

The  next  morning  I  had  to  be  on  board 
by  nine  o'clock;  that  night  in  the  hotel  I 
slept  a  little.  At  five  o'clock  I  got  up,  dressed 
myself,  shaved  clean;  then  walked  down  to 
the  landing-stage  and  went  on  board  the 
tender  which  took  me  to  the  big  steamer,  and 


250  THE  BOMB 

found  my  berth.  There  I  decided  in  my  own 
mind  that  I  was  born  in  Pembrokeshire  and 
was  going  back  to  my  native  land.  My 
accent,  I  knew,  would  pass  me  anywhere  as  an 
American. 

On  board  the  steamer  they  were  all  talking 
of  the  bomb-throwing  in  Chicago.  Every 
one  was  hoping  that  Parsons,  who  threw  the 
bomb,  would  be  arrested.  They  knew  all 
about  it  now.  Sixty  policemen  had  been 
wounded,  eight  had  been  killed  outright, 
seven  others  were  not  expected  to  live;  but  a 
great  many  of  these  wounded  persons,  I 
ascertained  afterwards,  had  been  wounded 
by  police  bullets.  The  accused  persons.  Spies, 
Fischer,  Fielden,  were  already  charged  as 
accessories  before  the  fact  of  the  murder  of 
Mathias  J.  Degan;  Degan  being  the  first  of 
the  dead  policemen  whose  body  was  identified. 

The  accusation  filled  me  with  contempt.  I 
knew  better  than  any  one  that  neither  Spies, 
nor  Fischer,  nor  Fielden  were  accessories 
before  the  fact,  or  after  the  fact;  nor,  indeed, 
were  they  connected  with  the  fact  in  any 
remotest  way.  Of  course,  their  innocence 
must  appear  in  due  course.  I  dismissed  the 
accusation  with  a  pitying  smile;  yet  I  should 
not  have  been  so  foolish-sure;  I  ought  to  have 
known  better  than  most  people  the  hollow 
mockery  of  American  justice. 


CHAPTER  X 

npHAT  passage  from  New  York  to  Liver- 
-■■  pool  on  the  "Scotia"  was  a  most 
blessed  interlude.  I  went  on  board  with 
jangling  nerves,  plagued  by  the  incessant 
questionings  of  conscience,  maddened  with 
memories  of  loss  never  to  be  made  good,  loss 
of  friendship  and  of  love.  I  felt  like  one  torn 
up  by  the  roots  and  tossed  out  to  misery  and 
death;  yet  as  soon  as  I  got  on  board  and  we 
left  the  land  behind  us,  the  healing  processes 
of  nature  began  their  divine  work.  There 
was  something  that  appealed  to  me  in  the 
quiet  English  manners  of  the  officers;  there 
was  rest  and  sympathy  in  the  courtesy  and 
consideration  of  the  stewards;  a  sort  of  slow 
content  in  the  lives  of  all  these  people  that 
acted  on  me  as  a  perpetual  lenitive.  I  talked 
very  little;  but  I  went  about  where  men  talked, 
for  the  conversation  of  others  took  me  out  of 
my  own  sad  and  bitter  thoughts,  and  allowed 
me  to  rest. 

The  very  first  day  every  one  went  to  get 
weighed,  and  I  was  drawn  along  with  the 
others.  In  Chicago  I  had  weighed  about  a 
hundred  and  sixty  pounds,  now  to  my  wonder- 


252  THE  BOMB 

ment  I  was  just  under  a  hundred  and  fifty. 
I  had  lost  ten  pounds  in  three  days,  yet  I  had 
eaten  and  drunk  as  usual.  I  began  to  under- 
stand how  terrible  the  strain  had  been. 

I  did  not  sleep  well  the  first  days  on  board, 
the  sea  air  seemed  to  excite  me;  every  hour, 
too,  I  grew  more  anxious  about  Lingg,  and 
the  conviction  that  I  should  never  see  Elsie 
again  was  an  aching,  an  irremediable  grief. 
I  could  not  help  thinking  of  her,  wondering 
what  would  become  of  her,  how  she  would 
take  my  unexpected  and  inexplicable  absence. 
My  thoughts  ran  on  the  same  theme,  from 
Lingg's  danger  to  Elsie's  sorrow,  morning, 
noon  and  night,  like  a  monkey  in  a  cage,  till 
my  poor  mind  was  all  sore  and  smarting. 

One  morning  the  steward  told  me  I  did  not 
look  well,  and  when  I  confessed  I  could  not 
sleep  he  advised  me  to  see  the  doctor  and  get  a 
draught;  so  I  hunted  out  the  doctor,  and  found 
one  of  the  most  charming  of  men,  a  little 
Scotchman,  called  Philip,  dark  and  nice- 
looking,  sympathetic,  too,  and  quick-witted, 
who  was  something  more  than  a  master  of 
his  trade.  A  doctor  begins  by  studying 
diseases  and  ends  by  studying  his  patients; 
that  was  where  Doctor  Edward  Philip  had 
begun,  though  he  was  still  under  thirty.  He 
told  me  it  was  easy  to  make  me  sleep,  and  he 
gave  me  a  small  dose  of  chloral. 


THE  BOMB  253 

A  sudden  thought  came  to  me,  and  I  asked 
him  why  I  could  not  have  a  dose  of  morphia. 

"No  reason,"  he  said,  "except  that  it  has 
after-consequences,"  and  he  showed  me  a 
httle  bottle  filled  with  tiny  tabloids  of  mor- 
phia, one-tenth  of  a  grain  in  each. 

I  said  nothing  that  night;  but  I  noted  the 
fact,  and  determined  to  cultivate  the  doctor. 
I  went  off,  for  the  present  well  content  with 
my  dose  of  chloral.  Philip  had  told  me  that 
exercise  was  a  good  thing,  so  I  paced  the  deck 
the  whole  live-long  day,  and  at  eleven  o'clock 
I  was  in  my  berth,  ready  for  sleep.  I  took  a 
cup  of  chocolate,  and  then  the  chloral,  and 
when  sleep  would  not  come,  I  set  myself  to 
think  of  my  mascot,  the  two  little  children  of  the 
conductor,  Joon  and  Jooly,  and  his  intense 
pride  in  them,  and  so  drifted  into  oblivion. 

When  I  awoke  the  steward  was  standing 
by  my  side. 

"Seven  o'clock,  sir!  You  told  me  to  wake 
you  at  seven." 

I  felt  a  new  man.  What  a  blessed  thing 
sleep  is!  I  got  up  and  dressed,  and  from 
that  moment  I  date  my  convalescence. 

Day  after  day  I  used  to  go  in  and  have  a 
talk  with  the  doctor,  and  long  before  the  end 
of  the  voyage,  I  had  managed  to  buy  from  him 
the  little  bottle  of  morphia  tablets,  half  of 
which  I  kept  in  a  glass  bottle  in  my  trousers 


254  THE  BOMB 

pocket,  and  half  in  a  cardboard  pill  box  in  my 
waistcoat  pocket,  so  that  in  case  of  arrest  I 
could  immediately  swallow  them.  I  was 
determined  not  to  be  caught  alive;  but  strange 
as  it  may  seem,  I  had  absolutely  no  fear  of 
being  arrested.  Life  offered  so  little  to  me — 
life  without  Elsie  and  Lingg  was  so  barren 
and  tedious  a  waste — that  I  did  not  care  how 
soon  it  ended,  so  long  as  it  did  not  end  in  pub- 
lic shame,  and  on  the  scaffold.  The  assurance 
that  I  had  with  me  an  easy  method  of  escape 
helped  my  overwrought  nerves  to  rest. 

As  the  days  passed  and  we  swung  into  the 
clear  sunlight  and  dancing  air  of  mid-Atlantic, 
my  spirits  began  to  recover  their  normal  tone. 
Day  by  day  I  grew  stronger,  and  all  too  soon 
we  sighted  land;  about  eleven  o'clock  one 
beautiful  May  morning  we  ran  up  the  Mersey 
to  Liverpool.  I  had  been  directed  to  a  quiet, 
second-class  hotel  by  Doctor  Philip,  and  after 
thanking  him  for  all  his  kindness,  I  went  on 
shore.  I  had  shaved  regularly  on  board  ship, 
and  I  had  not  the  slightest  fear  of  being  re- 
cognized. 

I  had  never  been  in  England  before;  the 
houses  seemed  to  me  tiny-small,  and  innumer- 
able. The  railway-engines  looked  like  toy- 
engines;  the  wagons  on  the  railway  like  toy- 
wagons  after  the  fifty-ton  freight  wagons  of 
the   American   railways.     But   Liverpool   re- 


THE  BOMB  255 

minded  me  of  Hamburg,  again  and  again,  in 
a  hundred  ways;  the  English  people,  too, 
reminded  me  of  Germans  and  my  childhood. 
They  were  slighter  people  than  the  Germans, 
but  a  little  taller;  better-looking,  I  thought, 
and  better  dressed,  wearing  an  air  of  greater 
comfort.  On  every  side  there  were  evidences 
of  greater  wealth;  this  little  island  was  evident- 
ly the  centre  of  a  great  empire. 

When  I  got  to  the  hotel,  after  my  supper,  I 
took  up  an  evening  paper,  and  the  first  thing 
I  saw,  staring  at  me,  was  a  little  paragraph 
headed  "Chicago": 

"The  Arrest  of  the  Anarchist  Leader." 
My  heart  sank;  was  it  Lingg  ?  Every  word 
of  the  telegraphed  account  was  photographed 
on  my  brain.  The  details  were  meagre;  no 
name  was  mentioned;  but  the  bare  report 
scared  me.  I  wanted  to  know  more;  but  there 
was  nothing  to  be  known.  The  night  passed 
for  me  in  a  whirl  of  excited  thought.  Next 
morning  the  papers  had  more  details;  but 
still  no  name;  yet  evidently  in  some  dumb, 
instinctive  way  the  people  in  Chicago  had 
begun  to  realize  that  at  last  the  police  had 
caught  some  one  worth  catching.  I  felt  sure 
it  must  be  Lingg.  The  reporters  spoke  of 
him  as  a  "wild  beast."  How  did  they  get 
that  idea.?  I  plagued  my  brain;  but  there 
was  dislike  and  fear  in  every  line  written 


256  THE  BOMB 

about  him.  The  new  captive  had  made  an 
extraordinary  impression  on  the  reporters, 
that  was  clear.     I  could  not  sleep. 

I  had  already  discovered  in  Liverpool  a 
place  where  one  could  find  all  the  American 
papers,  and  I  went  there  day  after  day.  About 
a  week  after  my  landing,  the  first  Chicago 
paper  came  to  hand;  as  I  opened  it  the  para- 
graph jumped  at  me:  "The  Arrest  of  Louis 
Lingg."  My  heart  turned  to  water.  I  was 
soon  able  to  reconstruct  the  whole  story,  and 
I  began  to  understand  the  reporter's  adjec- 
tives: "a  daring  terrorist,"  "the  bomb-maker," 
"the  wild  beast,  Lingg." 

The  assistant  chief  of  police,  a  man  called 
Hermann  Schuettler,  was  not  only  a  brave 
man,  but  a  very  powerful  one;  he  had  once 
killed  a  tough  in  Chicago  with  a  single  blow 
of  his  fist.  When  information  reached  the 
police  headquarters  about  Lingg  and  where 
he  lived,  Schuettler  at  once  undertook  to  arrest 
him.  The  police,  provided  with  a  full  de- 
scription of  Lingg,  surrounded  the  block  while 
Schuettler  went  to  his  house.  But  the  bird 
had  flown.  The  informer's  information,  how- 
ever, was  very  complete.  He  evidently  knew 
the  little  carpenter's  workshop  near  the  river 
where  Lingg  did  odd  jobs  when  out  of  work. 
Schuettler  and  an  assistant,  Loewenstein, 
made  their  way  there.     It  was  a  frame  build- 


THE  BOMB  257 

ing  of  one  story,  divided  up  into  a  large  work- 
ing-room and  two  small  bedrooms.  The 
door  of  the  workshop  was  locked;  Sehuettler 
put  his  shoulder  against  the  lock,  and  burst 
into  the  room.  At  the  sound  Lingg  turned 
from  where  he  had  been  reading,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  fireplace  by  the  window,  threw 
down  the  book,  and  with  one  leap  was  at  the 
policeman's  throat.  Sehuettler  talked  of  him- 
self in  one  of  the  papers  as  about  the  strongest 
man  in  Chicago;  in  the  way  of  business  he  had 
fought  dozens  of  toughs;  yet  he  admitted  to 
the  reporters  that  he  had  never  had  a  struggle 
like  that  with  Lingg.  They  rolled  over  the 
floor  of  the  room,  fighting  like  demons;  Lingg 
steadily  dragging  Sehuettler  towards  the  door. 
They  were  so  braided  together  and  their 
movements  were  so  quick  that  Loewenstein 
could  only  look  on  and  await  his  opportuinty. 
It  came  at  length.  Bit  by  bit  Lingg  was 
steadily  mastering  Sehuettler;  Sehuettler  ad- 
mitted that  he  was  choking,  when  he  got 
Lingg's  thumb  in  his  mouth  and  almost  bit 
it  off.  In  spite  of  the  pain  Lingg  hung  on, 
and  in  a  moment  more  Sehuettler  would  have 
been  unconscious.  Lingg  was  on  top,  his 
head  exposed,  and  just  when  he  had  won, 
Loewenstein  struck  him  senseless  with  a 
loaded  club,  and  he  was  carried  off  to  the 
police  station  before  he  recovered  conscious- 


258  THE  BOMB 

ness.  Somehow  or  other  everybody  knew  at 
once  that  the  capture  was  important.  Lingg 
said  no  word;  but  the  great  fight  he  had  made 
impressed  people,  and  the  mere  being  of  the 
man  was  so  intense  that  every  one  wrote  of 
him  as  "the  leader  of  the  terrorists." 

Thinking  over  the  whole  story,  I  could  not 
help  asking  myself  how  Lingg's  name  had  got 
|Out.  At  once  it  flashed  across  my  mind  that  he 
)had  been  given  away,  that  Raben  had  de- 
nounced him.  I  felt  it  to  my  finger  tips — the 
white  snake!  I  had  a  terrible  night,  reproach- 
ing myself  for  ever  having  had  anything  to  do 
with  Raben;  a  terrible  night! 

The  next  day  I  went  again  to  the  post  office, 
and  found  a  letter  for  Willie  Roberts.  It  was 
from  Ida.  The  letter  was  purposely  obscure, 
yet  plain  enough  for  me.  Ida  began  by  tell- 
ing me  that  her  Jack  had  been  taken  ill, 
dangerously  ill;  she  was  frightened,  though 
she  still  hoped  for  the  best.  His  message  to 
me  was  to  keep  my  promise;  he  wished  me  to 
remember,  too,  that  sick  men  often  did  note- 
worthy things.  Ida  went  on  to  say  that  she 
was  in  the  sick-room  every  day;  her  life  was 
there,  and  she  scarcely  lived  away  from  it. 

Herewith  ended  the  immediately  personal 
part  of  Ida's  letter.  She  told  me,  besides, 
that  she  had  had  a  long  visit  from  a  young 
lady   who   was   a   terrible   spit-fire,   with   an 


THE  BOMB  259 

immense  affection  for  Master  Will.  The 
girl  knew  why  Will  had  run  away  from  her; 
forgave  him  freely,  and  would  go  to  him 
whenever  he  wanted  her.  "If  I  am  any  judge 
of  love,"  Ida  wrote,  "this  is  the  real  thing." 
The  girl's  mother,  however,  seemed  to  think 
Will  was  a  ne'er-do-weel,  which  only  showed 
how  little  she  knew  him.  Ida  had  promised 
to  give  the  girl  any  message  Will  cared  to 
send.  And  Jack  wished  to  add  that  R.  was 
from  Kerioth. 

These  were  the  main  points  of  the  letter; 
I  was  "to  keep  my  promise  not  to  be  caught, 
and  expect  some  deed  or  other  from  Lingg." 
My  guess  that  Raben  was  the  traitor  was 
justified.  "R.  was  from  Kerioth"  bothered 
me  a  little  till  I  remembered  that  Judas  was 
from  Kerioth.  Elsie  had  forgiven  me,  and 
would  come  to  me  if  I  sent  for  her.  Now 
what  message  should  I  send  in  reply?  Just 
this — ^I  should  keep  my  promise  to  my  friend, 
and  begged  my  love  to  forget  me.  I  could 
hardly  bear  to  write  it,  and  I  was  glad  after- 
wards that  Elsie  did  not  accept  my  decision 
as  final.  I  need  hardly  say  I  wrote  my  reply 
in  such  a  way  that  it  could  not  have  excited 
suspicion,  even  if  it  had  fallen  into  the  hands 
of  Bonfield  himself,  or  Schuettler. 

The  more  I  thought  of  Ida's  letter,  the  more 
I  wondered  what  Lingg  meant  by  saying  that 


260  THE  BOMB 

even  prisoners  could  do  "noteworthy  things"; 
surely  he  was  powerless  there,  in  prison,  for 
good  or  evil ;  or  why  had  he  fought  so  desperate- 
ly for  freedom?  Even  I  had  no  conception 
of  his  prescience  and  courage. 

My  own  part  seemed  utterly  unworthy.  I 
wanted  to  go  back  and  give  myself  up;  but 
there  was  my  promise  to  Lingg;  he  had  re- 
peated it  in  the  train,  and  now  Ida  had  re- 
iterated it.  Well,  I  would  go  on  to  London 
and  see  if  I  could  not  influence  the  English 
press  a  little,  for  clearly  the  English  news- 
papers on  this  matter  were  merely  copying 
the  American  newspapers;  they  repeated  the 
sensational  adjectives  of  the  Western  reporters, 
only  giving  less  space  to  the  accounts,  because 
the  matter  was  not  of  such  interest  in  England. 

One  thing  appeared  clearly  from  all  the 
Chicago  papers,  that  the  whole  American 
population  was  scared  out  of  its  wits  by  the 
Hay  market  bomb.  Every  day  the  Chicago 
police  found  a  new  bomb.  I  thought  they 
had  started  a  special  manufactory  for  them, 
till  I  read  in  the  "Leader"  of  New  York  that 
the  same  piece  of  gas-piping  had  already 
served  as  a  new  bomb  on  seven  different 
occasions.  Captain  Bonfield  and  his  satel- 
lites were  very  busy;  they  had  used  the  "drag- 
net" to  some  effect.  In  ten  days  they  had 
arrested  over  ten  thousand  innocent  persons. 


THE  BOMB  261 

nearly  all  foreigners,  on  one  pretext  or  another, 
and  not  an  anarchist,  except  Lingg,  in  the 
whole  crowd.  Every  day  there  were  illegal 
arrests  by  the  hundred;  every  day  hundreds 
of  innocent  persons  were  thrown  into  prison 
without  a  shadow  of  evidence;  the  policemen 
who  could  denounce  and  arrest  the  greatest 
number  of  people  got  the  quickest  advance- 
ment. The  whole  town  was  frightened  to 
idiocy. 

I  went  off  to  London  the  same  day  and 
took  lodgings  in  Soho.  A  quiet  sitting-room 
and  bedroom  cost  me  fifteen  shillings  a  week, 
and  my  breakfast  each  morning,  a  cup  of  tea 
and  a  roll,  cost  me  only  three  shillings  and 
sixpence  a  week  more.  I  could  easily  live 
for  a  couple  of  years,  even  if  my  press  work 
brought  me  in  nothing. 

It  was  well  that  I  had  not  reckoned  too 
much  on  my  pen.  I  wrote  an  account  of  what 
I  called  "The  Reign  of  Terror  in  Chicago," 
about  a  column  in  length,  and  took  it  round 
to  the  London  newspapers;  but  I  never  could 
find  an  editor;  not  one  of  them  ever  kept  any 
office  hours;  or,  more  probably,  not  one  of 
them  would  see  a  stranger  without  an  intro- 
duction. It  is  harder  to  have  a  talk  with  an 
English  editor  in  London  than  with  a  Secre- 
tary of  State  in  America,  or  the  President 
himself. 


262  THE  BOISIB 

Tired  out  with  calling  and  seeing  no  one,  I 
made  fair  copies  of  the  article,  and  sent  them 
to  five  or  six  papers.  I  received  no  answer. 
I  thought  the  article  might  be  too  descriptive, 
so  I  wrote  one  full  of  personalities,  giving 
little  pen-pictures  of  Spies,  and  Fielden  the 
Englishman,  and  Engel.  I  hoped  that  if 
this  article  were  accepted  I  might  follow  it 
up  with  a  pen-portrait  of  Lingg;  but  I  need 
not  have  worried  myself;  not  one  of  the  papers 
published  the  article;  not  one  of  them  even 
returned  it  to  me.  I  began  to  see  that  what 
I  had  regarded  as  the  dulness  of  English 
papers,  was  a  sort  of  mental  twilight  which 
suited  the  eyes  of  the  readers. 

But  there  is  everything  in  London,  every 
quality  of  thought  and  talent.  I  went  out 
one  day  to  a  meeting  of  the  Social  Democra- 
tic Federation,  and  found  people  something 
like  the  men  I  had  known  on  the  other  side. 
None  of  the  speakers,  however,  seemed  to  me 
extraordinary.  There  was  a  thin,  hatchet- 
faced  man,  called  Champion,  who  had  been, 
I  was  told,  an  officer  in  the  army,  and  who 
talked  wild  communism  which  he  did  not 
understand.  There  was  a  Mr.  Hyndman, 
however,  a  stout,  prosperous-looking  Jewish 
gentleman,  who  had  read  a  good  deal,  and 
who  spoke  excellently,  though  he  had  not, 
perhaps,  got  hold  of  the  heart  of  the  matter; 


THE  BOMB  263 

still,  he  was  honest  and  earnest,  with  a  per- 
fectly clear  understanding  of  the  organized 
social  swindle,  and  that's  a  good  deal  to  say 
of  anyone.  Another  man  made  a  deep  and 
pleasant  impression  on  me.  He  was  below 
middle  height,  a  squarely-built,  stout  little 
man,  with  a  good  round  head,  ample  forehead, 
handsome  features,  and  beautiful,  lovable 
blue  eyes.  I  was  told  he  was  William  Mor- 
ris, the  poet,  and  I  listened  to  him  with  a  good 
deal  of  interest,  though  his  ideals  seemed  to 
be  rather  mediaeval  than  modern;  still,  he  was 
a  charming,  unaffected  personality.  He  re- 
minded me  of  Engel  and  Fielden;  in  essential 
kindliness  and  goodness  these  three  men  were 
very  much  alike. 

It  was  while  attending  one  of  the  meetings 
of  the  Social  Democratic  Federation  that  I 
heard  of  "Reynolds'  Newspaper,"  and  I  at 
once  sent  the  editor  copies  of  both  my  articles. 
He  rejected  "The  Reign  of  Terror  in  Chica- 
go"; but  accepted  the  personal  article,  in 
which  I  described  Spies  and  Fielden  and 
Engel.  He  altered  some  of  my  epithets,  how- 
ever, and  cut  out  some  entirely,  so  that  the 
effect  was  that  of  a  water-colour  sketch  on 
which  a  blurring  wet  sponge  had  been  freely 
used. 

I  should  like  to  speak  well  of  England,  for 
it  gave  me  rest  and  shelter  when  I  was  in 


264  THE  BOMB 

sorest  need.  But  it  was  quite  plain  to  me 
that  England  is  still,  as  in  Heine's  time,  the 
most  stubborn  upholder  of  the  established 
fact  in  the  whole  world.  Individualism  is 
pushed  even  further  there  than  it  is  in  Ameri- 
ca, and  the  remains  of  a  feudal  aristocracy 
petrify  extravagant  inequalities  of  possession 
and  privilege.  Poverty  is  treated  as  a  crime; 
the  poorhouses  degrade  men  by  the  exaction 
of  useless  work,  and  by  the  distribution  of 
incredibly  bad  food.  A  hundred  thousand 
persons  are  sent  to  prison  annually  because 
they  can't  pay  small  fines;  thousands  more  are 
imprisoned  each  year  for  debt — the  last  sur- 
vival in  Europe  of  chattel  slavery.  The 
bankruptcy  laws  are  as  barbarous  as  the 
Inquisition.  By  inflicting  savage  terms  of 
imprisonment  for  trifling  offences  against 
property,  English  judges  have  manufactured 
a  class  of  habitual  criminals  who  are  hardened 
beyond  brutality  by  the  semi-starvation  and 
the  floggings  of  the  gaols.  It  is  now  proposed 
by  some  authorities  to  imprison  these  tortured 
wretches  for  life.  The  lower  animals  are 
treated  better  in  England  than  in  any  other 
country  in  the  world;  the  poor  are  treated 
like  horses  in  Naples  or  dogs  in  Constantinople. 
As  I  got  to  know  the  Englishman  better,  I 
grew  to  like  him  as  a  well-meaning  person 
who  wears  the  biggest  fig-leaf  he  can  find; 


THE  BOMB  265 

but  with  time  it  has  slipped  out  of  place,  and 
is  now  worn  boldly  on  the  wrong  side. 

I  spent  the  whole  of  June  in  London,  and 
managed  to  get  two  or  three  articles  accepted 
by  the  advanced  section  of  the  press.  They 
were  fairly  well  paid  for,  and  I  lived  so  cheap- 
ly that  I  was  not  forced  to  dip  into  my  savings. 
Every  mail-day  I  read  the  Chicago  papers,  and 
every  mail  I  was  more  astounded  by  the  lunk- 
headed  bungling  of  the  Chicago  police,  and  by 
the  curious  effect  their  own  cowardice  had  on 
the  American  population.  The  police  acted 
on  the  principle  of  arresting  every  foreigner 
they  could  lay  their  hands  on,  and  by  the  mid- 
dle of  June  they  had  from  twelve  to  fifteen 
thousand  innocent  men  and  women  in  jail, 
and  still  continued  to  discover  bombs  and 
rifles  and  anarchist  clubs  every  day. 

When  the  State  Attorney  got  to  work, 
however,  to  frame  a  coherent  case,  he  soon 
found  that  nearly  all  these  arrests  were  utterly 
illegal  and  silly;  prisoners,  in  spite  of  the  pro- 
tests of  the  police,  had  to  be  released  literally 
by  the  thousand;  there  was  not  a  scrap  of 
evidence  procurable  against  them.  The  best 
the  prosecution  could  do  was  to  fix  on  the 
people  connected  with  the  two  advanced 
papers,  and  their  friends,  and  try  to  make  out 
a  case  against  them.  Spies,  of  course,  was 
charged,  and  his  assistant,  Schwab;  Fischer, 


266  THE  BOMB 

too,  and  Fielden,  on  the  ground  of  certain 
speeches  they  had  made ;  Lingg,  as  the  founder 
of  the  Lehr  and  Wehr  Verein,  and  poor  Engel 
because  he  had  always  gone  to  the  advanced 
meetings,  and  was  a  convinced  admirer  of 
Spies.  Parsons  was  charged,  too;  but  he 
could  not  be  found  for  the  moment. 

The  attitude  of  the  accused  served  as  a 
contrast  to  all  this  cowardice  and  stupidity. 
Not  a  single  one  of  them  turned  State's  evi- 
dence, or  tried  to  lay  the  blame  of  his  position 
on  any  one  else,  or  attempted  to  deny  the 
beliefs  he  held.  And  at  length  came  the 
dramatic  climax  to  this  quiet,  unacknowl- 
edged superiority  of  the  prisoners.  The 
police  had  not  been  able  to  find  Parsons;  but 
suddenly  a  letter  from  Parsons  appeared  in 
the  press,  declaring  that  as  he  was  innocent,  he 
would  give  himself  up  and  be  tried  with  the 
others,  and  one  day,  to  the  general  wonder,  he 
quietly  took  train  to  Chicago,  and  walked 
into  a  police  station. 

The  surrender  of  Parsons,  which  was  wired 
to  London  and  appeared  in  the  London 
papers,  had  several  results.  First  of  all  it 
caused  a  certain  sympathy  to  be  felt  towards 
him  and  his  fellow-prisoners.  A  number  of 
Americans  began  to  doubt  in  their  hearts 
whether  a  man  who  was  guilty  would  give 
himself  up,  and  if  Parsons  was  not  guilty. 


THE  BOMB  267 

none  of  the  eight  could  be  convicted.  Yet 
the  bomb  had  been  thrown,  and  some  onej 
must  be  punished  for  throwing  it.  The^ 
second  effect  of  Parsons'  surrender  touched 
me;  it  would  surely  force  the  police  to  look 
again  for  the  actual  thrower  of  the  bomb; 
clearly  he  was  not  the  man,  or  he  would  not 
put  his  head  in  the  lion's  mouth.  And  this 
entailed  the  further  consequence  that  the  in- 
former who  had  given  Lingg  away  would  prob- 
ably again  be  put  to  use.  If  Lingg  and  I  were 
right  in  taking  Raben  to  be  the  informer,  he 
would  now  certainly  denounce  me  to  the  police, 
and  my  prolonged  absence  must  confirm  his 
suspicion  that  I  was  the  actual  thrower  of  the 
bomb. 

Two  days  after  the  dramatic  surrender  of 
Parsons  came  the  statement  that  the  thrower 
of  the  bomb  was  a  German  writer  named 
Rudolph  Schnaubelt,  who  had  made  his 
escape  and  returned  to  Germany,  and  was 
now  being  searched  for,  especially  in  Bavaria, 
by  the  German  police.  Raben  was  the  in- 
former; of  that  now  I  had  no  doubt;  but 
fortunately  he  knew  nothing  precisely,  his 
suspicions  were  incapable  of  proof.  I  wrote, 
however,  at  once  to  Ida  saying  that  I  was  quite 
well,  and  very  eager  to  see  Chicago  again.  I 
should  like  to  come  out  at  once  if  I  could  do 
any  good,  or  be  of  any  service.     Would  she 


268  THE  BOMB 

let  me  know  what  Jack  thought?  Ever 
yours  and  his,  "Will." 

Ten  days  after  I  had  sent  this  letter  I  re- 
cieved  a  note  from  Ida,  written  evidently  after 
Parsons  had  given  himself  up,  and  I  had  been 
denounced  to  the  police.  In  this  note  she 
begged  me  not  to  leave  London;  Jack  was  a 
little  better, would  recover,  the  doctors  thought; 
but  in  all  cases,  hoped  I  would  make  myself 
a  home  in  my  own  land.  Ida  added  that  she 
saw  my  little  friend  frequently,  who  sent  me 
a  thousand  loving  messages. 

I  did  not  answer  this  letter.  I  could  say 
nothing  to  Elsie,  except  that  she  ought  to 
forget  me  as  soon  as  she  could,  and  the  line 
of  conduct  marked  out  for  me  did  not  become 
more  pleasant  on  reflection.  I  felt  I  ought  to 
be  in  Chicago  making  a  full  confession  which 
would  free  the  innocent;  but  my  promise  bound 
me,  and  the  feeling  that  Lingg  was  sure  to  be 
right  in  claiming  its  fulfilment.  Besides, 
my  confession  even  would  not  free  Lingg, 
though  I  took  all  the  blame  and  guilt  on 
myself,  for  the  latest  Chicago  papers  stated 
definitely  that  materials  for  bombs  had  been 
found  in  Lingg's  rooms,  and  chemistry  books 
containing  a  new  formula  for  a  high  explosive 
written  in  his  own  hand.  Gradually  it  seemed 
even  the  purblind  public  and  the  newspapers 
were  beginning  to  recognize  that  Lingg  was 


THE  BOMB  260 

really  the  storm-centre.  Here  is  a  comparatively 
fair  description  of  him;  it  is  from  the  pen  of 
an  American  eye-witness  who  had  studied 
him.  I  reproduce  it  in  order  to  let  my  readers 
see  how  Lingg  struck  the  best  sort  of  reporter. 
"The  strange  figure  in  the  group,  the 
strangest  man  I  have  ever  known,  and  the 
least  human,  is  Louis  Lingg.  He  is  a  kind 
of  modern  berserker,  utterly  reckless  of  con- 
sequences to  himself,  driving  on  in  a  sus- 
tained fury  of  vengeance  upon  the  whole 
social  order.  Little  of  his  abnormal  physi- 
cal strength  is  apparent  when  he  is  in  repose. 
He  is  slightly  under  average  height,*  very 
compactly  built,  with  tawny  hair,  a  strong  face 
and  the  most  extraordinary  eyes  I  have  ever 
seen  in  a  human  head,  steel-grey,  exceedingly 
keen,  and  bearing  in  their  depths  a  kind  of 
cold  and  hateful  fire.  His  hands  are  small 
and  delicate;  his  head  large  and  very  well 
shaped;  his  face  indicates  breeding  and  cul- 
ture. It  is  when  he  walks,  as  I  often  see  him 
striding  to  and  fro  in  the  jail  corridor,  that  he 
seems  most  formidable;  for  then  his  lithe, 
gliding,   and  peculiarly  silent  step,  and  the 

*It  is  curious  to  notice  here  how  even  careful  observers  are  often 
utterly  mistaken  on  important  points .  The  writer  of  the  above 
sketch  declares  that  Lingg  was  "slightly  under  average  height"; 
the  truth  is  that  Lingg  was  rather  above  the  "average  height," 
being  nearly  five  feet  eight  in  his  stocking  feet.  Schaack,  the 
police  captain,  stated  afterwards  in  print  that  Lingg  was  "tall." 
^Note  of  Ediior. 


270  THE  BOMB 

play  of  muscles  about  his  shoulders,  suggests 
something  cat-like,  or  abnormal,  an  impression 
heightened  by  the  leonine  wave  of  hair  he 
wore  when  he  was  arrested,  though  when  I 
saw  him  he  was  closely  cropped  and  clean- 
shaven. After  all,  for  a  small  man,  he  is 
the  most  terrific  figure  I  have  ever  met.  To 
any  question  or  remark  he  is  wont  to  respond 
with  a  disconcerting  stare,  and  I  think  few 
people  observe  him  without  a  feeling  of  re- 
lief that  he  is  on  the  other  side  of  the  steel 
bars.  .  •  •'' 


CHAPTER  XI 

rpHE  trial  in  Chicago  was  a  startling,  a 
-■-  horrible  revelation,  even  to  me,  of 
man's  innate  brutality.  It  seems  only  natural 
to  expect  human  beings  to  be  at  their  best  in 
a  trial  where  life  and  death  hang  in  the  balance. 
It  shocks  the  onlooker  to  discover  that  the 
great  issue  does  not  affect  in  any  way  the 
character  or  even  the  conduct  of  ordinary 
people. 

All  through  that  year  the  capitalist  papers 
in  Chicago  had  been  shamelessly  one-sided. 
Day  after  day  their  columns  had  been  filled 
with  furious  encouragement  of  the  police; 
again  and  again  they  had  called  upon  Bonfield 
and  his  helpers  to  "use  lead"  against  us;  but 
I  had  hoped  that  now  this  would  all  cease, 
that  the  hireling  partisans  of  the  established 
order  would  hold  their  hands,  at  least  for  a 
time.  They  could  feel  pretty  confident  that 
the  judges  whom  they  had  appointed  and 
the  machinery  of  the  law  which  they  had 
instituted  would  act  as  they  had  designed 
them  to  act.  At  the  worst,  I  thought,  there 
will  be  a  show  of  fairness,  and  I  comforted 
myself  with  the  reflection  that  if  there  was 


272  THE  BOMB 

any  fair-play  at  all,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  convict  seven  out  of  the  eight  accused  per- 
sons; for  those  seven  had  had  nothing  on  earth 
to  do  with  the  throwing  of  the  bomb,  and,  in 
fact,  knew  nothing  whatever  about  it.  Poor 
fool  that  I  was !  I  still  imagined  that  innocence 
insured  acquittal  in  a  court  of  justice. 

But  already  when  I  thought  of  the  trial  I 
began  to  grow  indignant,  for  strong  as  their 
case  was  I  began  to  fear,  and  this  was  the 
heart  of  my  fear.  The  police  had  already 
asserted  that  they  had  found  bombs  in  Lingg's 
rooms.  I  knew  Lingg  well  enough  to  know 
that  that  was  almost  certainly  untrue;  he 
would  never  have  implicated  Ida  in  his 
crime.  From  the  description  of  the  place, 
too,  where  he  had  been  captured,  I  knew  that 
he  had  been  trapped  in  his  little  carpenter's 
workshop,  and  bombs  would  have  been  dis- 
covered there  if  anyw^here.  Besides,  the  police 
description  of  the  bombs  found  in  Lingg's 
rooms  was  altogether  wrong;  they  had  not 
the  same  shape  as  Lingg's  bombs,  and,  above 
all,  the  explosive  used  was  declared  to  be 
dynamite,  which  Lingg  never  used.  For 
these  reasons  I  felt  certain  that  the  bombs 
were  of  police  imagining,  or  police  manu- 
facture. And  if  the  police  could  manufacture 
lying  evidence  against  Lingg,  what  was  to 
hinder   them   manufacturing   lies    about   the 


THE  BOMB  273 

others  ?    I  began  to  fear  for  the  result  and,  as 
it  turned  out,  with  good  reason. 

The  next  batch  of  Chicago  papers  showed 
me  that  the  police  had  discovered  bombs  in 
Parsons's  desk,   and  rifles  by  the  dozen   in 
Spies's   house,   and   a   little   later  bombs   in 
Engel's  shop.     I  had  no  need  to  read  further;  i 
even  the  Chicago  police  had  surpassed  them-  ! 
selves,  and  reached  the  limit  when  they  at- 
tributed   bomb-making   to    kind    old    Engel.  i 
The   papers   treated   all   these   so-called   dis- 
coveries   quite    seriously;    published    pictures^ 
of   the   bombs;   pictures   of   the   fulminating! 
caps,   anything  and  everything  to  prejudice' 
the  case,  to  excite  horror  and  detestation  of  ^ 
the  accused.     Evidently  the  established  order, 
the  robbers  in  possession,   were  determined 
at   all    costs   to   strike   down   their   enemies. 
Why  should  I  hesitate  to  call  them  robbers? 
When   writing   of  the   Paris   Commune,   did 
not  Ruskin  say  that  "the  capitalists  are  the  1^ 
guilty  thieves  of  Europe  .  .  .".'^     Did  he  not 
attack,  as  it  should  be  attacked,  that  "occult 
theft;  theft  which  hides  itself,  even  from  it- 
self, and  is  legal,  respectable,  and  cowardly, 
which  corrupts  the  body  and  soul  of  men, 
to  the  last  fibre  of  them".?     And  if  you  dis- 
pute  the   authority   of  Ruskin,   will  you  be 
convinced  by  Carlyle,   or  by  Balzac,   or  by 
Goethe,  or  by  Ibsen,  or  by  Heine,  or  by  Ana- 


274  THE  BOMB 

tole  France,  or  by  Tolstoi,  by  any  or  all  the 
leaders  of  modern  thought?  On  this  subject 
they  are  all  agreed.  And  agreeing  with  them, 
I  mean  to  show  how  this  conspiracy  of  legal- 
ized thieves  in  Chicago  defended  themselves, 
and  at  length  rid  themselves  of  their  oppo- 
nents. I  beg  my  readers  to  believe  that  I 
expose  this  shameless  vengeance  of  theirs 
not  in  anger,  but  simply  as  a  warning  and  a 
lesson  to  the  class  I  represent.  It  is  well 
for  working-men  to  know  how  the  middle 
classes  prostitute  justice  in  the  most  demo- 
cratic country  in  Christendom. 

/  The  trial  was  a  cruel  farce;  from  beginning 
to  end  a  mockery  of  justice.  For  weeks  be- 
fore it  began  the  papers,  as  I  have  said,  had 
been  poisoning  the  minds  of  the  people  in 
Chicago  with  every  imaginable  police  lie  and 
slander — any  stick  seemed  to  the  journalists 
good  enough  for  the  anarchist  dog.     At  the 

.'time  the  trial  commenced  some  thousands  of 
men  were  still  in  prison  in  Chicago  on  sus- 

,picion;  held  there  in  defiance  of  law,  as  a 

j ready  means  of  terrorizing  any  witnesses  that 

I  might  be  called  for  the  defence. 

Day  after  day  the  court-room  was  packed 
with  friends  of  the  established  order;  well- 
dressed  citizens  who  showed  their  feelings, 
now  by  cheers,  and  now  by  groans,  in  most 
unmistakable  fashion.     The  proletariat,  who 


THE  BOMB  275 

outnumbered  the  wealthy  ten  to  one,  were 
not  allowed  to  have  any  of  their  representa- 
tives in  court;  some  who  came  there  were 
arrested  and  dragged  off  to  prison ,  without 
any  pretence  of  legality,  in  order  to$&ourage 
the  rest.  What  a  disgraceful,  pitiable  farce 
it  all  was! 

First  of  all,  the  trial  was  held  too  soon  after 
the  offence  to  be  in  any  way  fair  to  the  accused, 
much  less  impartial.  It  began  on  the  twenty- 
first  of  June,  within  six  weeks  of  the  bomb- 
throwing.  Then,  too,  it  was  held  on  the  very 
scene  of  the  crime  where  men  were  still  too 
frightened  to  think  of  justice,  and  though  a 
change  of  venue  was  asked  for,  it  was  peremp- 
torily refused.  But  not  only  was  the  court- 
room packed;  the  jury  was  packed  also. 
Out  of  the  thousand  odd  talesmen  on  the  list, 
only  ten  came  from  the  fourteenth  ward,  the 
working-class  quarter,  yet  this  ward  alone 
had  a  population  of  130,000,  whereas  the 
whole  population  of  Chicago  was  only  five 
hundred  thousand.  And  to  make  security 
doubly  sure,  the  ten  talesmen  who  were  taken 
from  the  fourteenth  ward  were  all  carefully 
selected  by  the  police;  they  all  lived,  indeed, 
within  a  few  yards  of  the  police  station.  It 
was  quite  in  vain  that  Captain  Black,  the 
counsel  for  the  defence,  used  his  right  of  chal- 
lenge on  such  men;  he  challenged  all  of  them 


276  THE  BOMB 

he  was  allowed  to  challenge,  a  hundred  and 
sixty  for  the  eight  defendants;  but  all  the 
talesmen  were  of  the  same  class,  so  that  he 
was  powerless.  A  single  instance  will  es- 
tablish this.  He  challenged  one  juror,  and 
appealed  to  the  judge  against  him;  for  when 
questioned  this  juror  admitted  that  he  had 
made  up  his  mind  from  the  first  that  the  ac- 
cused were  guilty — even  before  he  had  come 
into  court.  The  judge,  in  order  to  flaunt  his 
prejudice,  or  rather  in  order  to  discover  his 
complete  sympathy  with  the  capitalist  class, 
allowed  this  juror  to  serve. 

Pontius  Pilate  was  an  infinitely  fairer  judge 
than  Judge  Gaiys  Pilate  had  some  misgivings; 
now  and  then  tried  to  show  fairness;  but 
Gary  was  proof  against  any  such  sympathy. 
From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  trial 
he  always  supported  the  State  Attorney  Grin- 
nell,  and  opposed  the  prisoners'  counsel. 
Take  one  instance:  he  allowed  a  work  of 
Most,  the  half-mad  anarchist,  to  be  put  in 
evidence  against  the  prisoners,  though  there 
was  no  evidence  whatever,  no  particle  of 
presumption  even,  that  any  of  the  prisoners 
had  ever  seen  the  book,  and  though  it  was 
written  in  a  language  which  neither  Fielden 
j  nor  Parsons  could  understand.  With  a  hos- 
tile public  filling  the  court,  with  hostile  papers 
whipping  prejudice  to  madness,  with  a  packed 


THE  BOMB  277 

jury  of  bitter  opponents,  with  a  judge  who 
over-rode  the  most  ordinary  forms  of  law  in 
order  to  prejudice  the  jury  against  the  prisoners, 
there  was  not  much  chance  of  a  decent  ver- 
dict. In  spite  of  all  this,  however,  the  case 
against  the  prisoners  was  so  weak  that  it 
seemed  again  and  again  as  if  it  must  break  to 
pieces  of  its  own  rottenness. 

The  chief  witnesses  for  the  police  were 
Captain  John  Bonfield  and  Messrs.  Seliger, 
Jansen  and  Shea.  They  all  contradicted 
themselves  and  contradicted  each  other  on 
vital  points.  Bonfield  was  asked  whether  he 
had  ever  used  the  words,  "If  I  could  only  get 
a  thousand  of  those  Socialists  and  Anarchists 
in  a  bunch  .  .  .  I'd  make  short  work  of  them." 
He  admitted  that  he  had  used  them,  and  de- 
clared that  he  was  justified.  Seliger  lived 
in  the  police  station,  and  admitted  that  he 
had  received  large  sums  of  money  from  the 
police.  Jansen  and  Shea  confessed  that  they 
had  joined  Socialist  clubs  and  had  made 
speeches  to  incite  the  members  against  the 
police — confessed  further  that  they  had  been 
paid  for  those  services;  and  yet  Judge  Gary 
held  that  their  evidence  was  admissible,  and 
asserted  that  on  the  main  points  it  had  not 
been  shaken  in  cross-examination.  Yet  these 
witnesses  were  on  their  own  admission  agents 
provocateurs.     This  travesty  of  justice  drag- 


278  THE  BOMB 

ged  on  for  two  months;  but  long  before  it 
came  to  an  end  I  was  sickened  with  the  con- 
viction that  the  jury  would  find  every  one  of 
the  eight  guilty,  and  yet  there  were  moments 
when  it  seemed  impossible  for  even  that  jury 
to  commit  such  a  crime. 

Captain  Black  did  his  work  splendidly  as 
advocate  for  the  defence;  he  tore  the  whole 
indictment  of  the  State  Attorney  to  pieces. 
He  showed  that  at  first  the  eight  men  had 
been  put  on  trial  for  murder,  and  for  weeks 
the  police  had  tried  to  prove  that  they  were 
the  makers  and  throwers  of  the  bombs,  or  at 
least  privy  to  the  throwing  (for  the  one  bomb 
I  threw  had  become  three,  according  to  the 
police  testimony).  This  case.  Captain  Black 
pointed  out,  had  absolutely  broken  down; 
there  was  not  a  tittle  of  credible  evidence  to 
connect  any  one  of  the  prisoners  with  the 
throwing  of  a  bomb.  Then  he  showed  how 
the  State  Attorney  Grinnell,  recognizing  this, 
had  begun  to  change  his  ground,  and  charge 
the  accused  as  anarchists.  "The  whole  pros- 
ecution now  rests,"  he  said,  "on  the  attempt 
to  prove  that  these  men  have  incited  to  mur- 
der by  their  speeches  and  writings."  He 
went  on  to  ridicule  the  idea  that  any  connec- 
tion had  been  established  between  the  strong 
language  used  by  the  defendants  and  the 
throwing  of  the  bomb.     He  made  his  final 


THE  BOMB  279 

appeal  to  the  jury  to  treat  the  ease  as  a  politi- 
cal case,  as  a  case  in  which  the  hot  words  of 
speakers  on  either  side  were  not  to  be  taken 
seriously;  but  the  packed  class  jury  were  above 
argument,  and  beyond  appeal.  They  brought 
in  a  verdict  of  "Guilty"  against  every  one  of 
the  eight. 

The  value  of  the  verdict  appears  from  one 
fact.  Among  the  eight  was  one  man,  Oscar 
Neebe,  against  whom  nothing  had  been  proved, 
whose  language  had  always  been  moderate, 
who  was  not  even  at  the  meeting  in  Des- 
plaines  Street;  but  the  jury,  thinking  it  a  pity 
to  make  an  exception,  brought  in  Neebe  guilty  (j 
with  the  rest.  Then  the  prisoners  were  asked 
whether  they  had  anything  to  say  why  sen- 
tence should  not  be  passed  upon  them. 

One  after  the  other  got  up,  and  made  better 
speeches  than  I  should  have  believed  them 
able  to  make.     Parsons,  of  course,  used  the 
occasion  magnificently;  according  to  all  ac- 
counts surpassed  himself.   He  began  by  draw- 
ing attention  to  the  fact  that  this  trial  was 
simply  an  incident  in  the    long  conflict  be- 
tween capitalism  and  labour.     "It  was  well 
known,"  he  declared,  "that  the  representa-^ 
tives  of  the  millionaire  organization,  known  | 
as    the    Chicago    Citizens'    Association,    had! 
spent  money  like  water  in  order  to  buttress 
up  the  case  against  the  accused  at  every  weak 


280  THE  BOMB 

spot.  These  millionaires  had  at  their  dis- 
posal the  capitalist  press — 'that  vile  and  in- 
famous organization  of  hired  liars.'  .  .  .  The 
trial  was  instituted  by  the  capitalist  mob, 
prosecuted  by  the  mob,  conducted  amid  the 
cheers  and  howls  of  the  mob,  and  had  resulted 
in  a  mob  verdict.  .  .  . 

"You  are  now  asked,"  he  went  on,  "to 
enter  a  verdict  against  us  as  anarchists.  Why 
not  consider  first  the  writings  of  the  capitalist 
press  which  came  first  in  time,  and  which  we 
only  answered.^  When  the  sailors  in  the 
docks  were  striking  to  obtain  higher  wages, 
what  did  *The  Chicago  Times'  say  ?  *  Hand- 
grenades  should  be  thrown  among  them;  by 
such  treatment  they  would  be  taught  a  valua- 
ble lesson  and  other  strikers  would  take  a 
warning  from  their  fate.  .  .  .'  What  did 
*The  New  York  Herald'  say?  'The  brutal 
strikers  can  understand  no  other  meaning 
than  that  of  force,  and  ought  to  get  enough  to 
remember  it  for  many  generations.'  What 
did  'The  Indianapolis  Journal'  say?  'Give 
the  strikers  a  rifle  diet  for  a  few  days,  and  see 
how  they  like  that  kind  of  bread.'  What 
did  'The  Chicago  Tribune'  say?  'Give 
them  strychnine.' 

"Are  these  editors  and  writers  on  trial  for 
inciting  to  murder?  Yet  murder  came  again 
and  again  as  a  result  of  their  incitement.     I 


THE  BOMB  281 

have   quoted  you   'The   Chicago   Tribune's' 
article;  three  days  afterwards  seven  unarmed 
strikers  were  shot  down  by  the  police,  mur- 
dered in  cold  blood.     Was  the  editor  or  the 
writer  of  the  article  in  'The  Chicago  Tribune' 
arrested  and  charged  with  murder?     There 
is  evidently  in  America  one  justice  for  the 
rich,   and   another  for  the  poor.     We  anar- 
chists are  to  be  treated  as  murderers;  every 
hot  or  unconsidered  word  we  have  used  is  to 
be  brought  up  against  us,  yet  there  might  be 
some  mitigation  of  the  hatred  you  feel  towards 
us  if  you  considered  our  position.     Do  you  j 
think  it  easy  for  us  to  see  workmen  starving  j 
who  are  willing  to  work  ?  to  watch  their  wives  { 
and  children  getting  thinner  and  weaker  day  ' 
by    day?     All    this    winter    thirty    thousand 
workmen  have  been  out  of  work  in  Chicago, 
or,  taking  a  family  of  three  children  to  each 
head,  nearly  a  third  of  the  whole  population  of 
Chicago    has  been  for  months  on  the  brink 
of  starvation.     When  we  see   little   children 
huddled   round   the   factory  gates,   the  poor 
little  things  whose  bones  are  not  yet  hard, 
when   we   see   them   torn   from   the   fireside, 
thrown  into  the  bastiles  of  labour,  and  their 
frail  little  bodies  turned  into  gold  to  swell  the  j 
hoard  of  the  millionaire  or  to  bedeck  the  form 
of   some   aristocratic   Jezebel,   it  is  time   to  \ 
speak  out. 


282  THE  BOMB 

"Judge  Gary  has  declared  that  resistance 
to  the  execution  of  the  law  is  a  crime,  and  that 
if  such  resistance  lead  to  death  it  is  murder; 
well.  Judge  Gary  is  mistaken.  Our  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  is  a  higher  authority 
than  Judge  Gary,  and  it  asserts  that  resistance 
to  tyranny,  to  unlawful  authority,  is  right;  and 
what  could  be  more  unlawful  than  for  police 
to  use  bludgeons  and  revolvers  on  unarmed 
men  exercising  the  American  right  of  free 
speech  in  an  open  meeting?  The  Judge 
Garys  pass  away  and  are  forgotten;  but  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  will  remain  as 
a  monument  of  human  wisdom.  .  .  . 

"The  prosecuting  attorney  has  tried  to 
excite  prejudice  against  me  personally  by 
calling  me  'a  paid  agitator.'  Well,  I  am  paid, 
and  I  have  been  paid.  I  receive  the  wages 
fixed  by  myself,  eight  dollars  a  week,  for 
editing  *The  Alarm,'  and  all  my  other  work. 
Eight  dollars  a  week,  that  is  what  my  wife 
and  I  live  on — *a  paid  agitator';  it  is  for 
the  world  to  judge  whether  the  sneer  is  de- 
served .... 

"Do  not  think,  gentlemen  of  the  prosecu- 
tion, that  you  will  have  settled  this  case  when 
they  have  carried  my  lifeless  body  to  the 
potter's  field.  Do  not  imagine  that  this  trial 
w^ill  be  ended  by  strangling  me  and  my  col- 
leagues!     I   tell   you   there   will   be   another 


THE  BOMB  283 

trial,  and  another  jury,  and  a  more  righteous 
verdict." 

I  have  only  given  a  few  extracts  from  Par- 
sons's  speech,  taking  a  bit  from  this  newspaper 
and  a  bit  from  that;  for  though  he  spoke  for 
two  days,  the  whole  of  the  reports  I  could  get 
would  have  gone  into  a  column.  The  same 
papers,  "The  Chicago  Tribune,"  and  "The 
Chicago  Times,"  which  gave  the  police  evi- 
dence verbatim,  minus  the  contradictions, 
and  reported  the  speech  for  the  prosecution 
at  full  length,  scarcely  deigned  to  give  one 
word  in  a  hundred  of  Parsons's  speech;  yet 
even  these  prejudiced  papers  admitted  that 
his  speech  was  a  great  one,  and  had  a  great 
effect. 

But  to  my  mind,  knowing  the  man,  and 
reading  at  a  distance,  the  speech  of  Engel 
was  just  as  effective,  and  even  more  touching 
in  its  transparent  honesty.  He  did  not  carry 
the  war  into  the  enemies'  camp  as  Parsens 
did;  he  simply  showed  what  the  poor  had 
suffered,  and  confessed  that  his  sympathies 
were  naturally  with  all  those  who  laboured 
and  starved,  and  who  were  treated  always 
with  harshness  and  contempt.  Everything 
Engel  said  reached  one's  best  sympathies. 
But  the  sensation  of  the  trial  was  the  speech 
of  Louis  Lingg,  though  it  was  very  short. 

"It  is  a  pleasant  irony,"  he  began,  "to  call 


284  THE   BOMB 

this  a  fair  trial  in  open  court,  with  a  packed 
jury,  a  prejudiced  judge,  and  crowds  of  hired 
police  witnesses;  but  the  irony  becomes  sharp 
when  we  are  asked,  after  being  brought  in 
'Guilty,'  whether  we  have  anything  to  say 
why  we  should  not  be  hanged,  it  being  per- 
fectly well  understood  that  if  we  spoke  with 
the  tongues  of  angels  we  should  still  be  hanged. 

"I  had  intended,'*  he  went  on,  "to  defend 
myself;  but  the  trial  has  been  so  unfair,  the 
conduct  of  it  so  disgraceful,  the  intent  and 
purpose  of  it  so  clearly  avowed,  that  I  will 
not  waste  words.  Your  capitalist  masters 
want  blood;  why  keep  them  waiting? 

"The  rest  of  the  accused  have  told  you  that 
they  do  not  believe  in  force.  I  may  tell  you 
that  they  have  no  business  in  this  dock  with 
me.  They  are  innocent,  every  one  of  them; 
I  do  not  pretend  to  be.  I  believe  in  force 
just  as  you  do.  That  is  my  justification. 
Force  is  the  supreme  arbiter  in  human 
affairs.  You  have  clubbed  unarmed  strikers, 
shot  them  down  in  your  streets,  shot  down 
their  women  and  their  children.  So  long  as 
vou  do  that,  we  who  are  Anarchists  will  use 
explosives  against  you. 

"Don't  comfort  yourselves  with  the  idea 
that  we  have  lived  and  died  in  vain.  The 
Hay  market  bomb  has  stopped  the  bludgeon- 
ings  and  shootings  of  your  police  for  at  least 


THE  BOMB  285 

a  generation.     And  that  bomb  is  only  the 
first,  not  the  last  .  .  . 

''Now  I  have  done.  I  despise  you.  li 
despise  your  society  and  its  methods,  your 
courts  and  your  laws,  your  force-propped 
authority.     Hang  me  for  it!" 

According  to  all  accounts  this  speech  of 
Lingg  had  a  tremendous  effect;  the  coolness 
of  it,  the  detached  impartiality  of  the  begin- 
ning, the  bold  avowal  of  his  belief  in  force,  the 
noble  declaration  that  he  alone  was  guilty, 
the  daring  of  the  whole  thing,  affected  every- 
body. Above  all  the  threat  that  the  Hay- 
market  bomb  was  not  the  last.  But,  of  course, 
the  speech  had  no  influence  on  the  judge. 

Judge  Gary,  in  giving  sentence,  began  by 
saying  that  he  was  sorry  for  the  unhappy 
condition  ...  of  the  accused;  "but  the  law 
holds  that  whoever  advises  murder  is  himself 
guilty  of  the  murder  that  is  committed  pur- 
suant to  his  advice.  ..."  He  went  on  to  say 
that  "the  defendant  Neebe  should  be  im- 
prisoned in  the  State  Penitentiary  at  Joliet  at 
hard  labour  for  the  term  of  fifteen  years,  and 
that  each  of  the  other  defendants,  between 
the  hours  of  ten  o'clock  in  the  forenoon  and 
two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  third 
of  December  next,  in  the  manner  provided 
by  the  statute  of  this  State,  be  hung  by  the 
neck  until  he  is  dead.   Remove  the  prisoners." 


286  THE  BOMB 

The  whole  spirit  and  meaning  of  the  trial 
can  be  understood  by  any  impartial  person 
from  an  article  which  appeared  in  "The  Chi- 
cago Tribune,"  welcoming  the  verdict  and 
the  sentences  with  indecent  and  shameless 
delight.  The  article  was  headed  "Chicago 
Hangs  Anarchists,"  and  the  writer  proposed 
that  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  should  im- 
mediately be  subscribed  for  the  jury  who  had 
so  nobly  done  their  duty. 

I  cannot  describe  the  alternations  of  hope 
and  fear  which  I  experienced  in  the  two 
months  the  trial  lasted.  For  sixty  days  I 
was  on  the  rack.  I  speak  figuratively,  be- 
cause this  English  language  is  figurative;  it 
has  all  been  made  by  poets  and  romance 
writers,  by  people  with  imagination,  and  not 
by  people  with  open  eyes  and  clear  judgment; 
but  new  experiences  demand  a  new  telling, 
and  the  language  of  plain  fact  is  sufficiently 
impressive.  Before  the  trial  was  half  over  I 
h«ad  got  into  a  habit  of  sleeplessness  which 
first  came  to  me  after  I  left  Chicago.  At  the 
beginning  I  paid  no  attention  to  this  insom- 
nia. When  I  was  tired  out,  I  thought  I 
should  sleep;  but  as  the  conviction  grew  in 
me  that  these  men  would  all  be  sentenced — 
Parsons,  who  had  given  himself  up.  Spies, 
the  lovable  Fielden,  dear  old  Engel,  Lingg — 
the  sleeplessness  grew  on  me,  and  however 


THE  BOMB  287 

tired  I  was  I  could  not  sleep  without  chloral 
or  an  injection  of  morphia.  Even  when  I 
went  out  of  London  to  Richmond  Park,  and 
walked  all  day  in  that  beautiful  place, 
and  returned  tired  out,  I  could  not  sleep;  or  if 
I  dozed  away  for  a  few  minutes  I  began  to 
dream  hideous  dreams,  which  woke  me  in 
spite  of  myself,  shaking  with  fear. 

As  my  anxiety  grew  greater  the  hallucina- 
tions became  more  distressing.  One  that  I 
remember  most  acutely  used  to  take  the  form 
of  an  eye,  which  seemed  to  stare  and  stare  at 
me  till  I  awoke.  The  eye  would  often  in  my 
dream  grow  luminous,  and  in  its  light  I  would 
see  again  Crane's  Alley,  and  the  truck,  and 
the  speakers,  and  the  little  red  light,  as  of  a 
falling  star,  and  then  the  pit  in  the  street, 
and  the  red  shambles,  and  I  was  awake, 
shivering  in  a  cold  sweat. 

In  another  of  these  dreams  a  point  would 
appear  and  turn  quickly  into  a  beak  and 
furnish  itself  with  wings,  and  swoop  down 
nearer  and  nearer  till  I  realized  that  it  was 
trying  to  tear  out  my  eyes,  and  then  it  would 
come  close  and  suddenly  change  into  the 
dreadful  street,  and  again  I  was  awake,  gasp- 
ing with  terror. 

Even  when  I  merely  closed  my  eyes,  all  the 
colours  of  the  kaleidoscope  would  paint  them- 
selves in  bars  and  rings  upon  my  eyelids. 


288  THE  BOMB 

Sometimes  I  saw  nothing  but  crimson,  and 
then  orange,  and  then  bars  of  alternate  crim- 
son and  orange.  How  could  one  sleep  with 
one's   nerves   playing  such   tricks? 

The  sleeplessness  made  the  strain  intoler- 
able; I  lost  appetite  and  lost  strength.  One 
day  I  went  to  a  doctor,  and  he  told  me  I  was 
suffering  from  nervous  breakdown,  and  if  I 
did  not  take  a  rest  the  consequences  would 
be  serious.  I  asked  him  how  I  should  rest. 
He  shook  his  sapient  head,  told  me  not  to 
think  of  anything  unpleasant,  to  go  out,  and 
live  in  the  open  air,  much  as  one  might  tell 
a  hungry  man  to  pay  a  thousand  pounds  into 
his  balance  at  the  bank. 

I  reached  breaking  point  just  before  the 
trial.  I  had  been  out  reading  the  papers, 
and  had  forgotten  to  get  anything  to  eat. 
When  I  returned  to  my  lodging  I  ran  up  the 
stairs  two  at  a  time  as  was  my  custom.  As 
I  got  into  my  room  and  closed  the  door  every- 
thing swayed  about,  and  I  fell  against  the 
bed,  and  then  slid  down  on  the  floor  in  a 
faint.  When  I  came  to  I  felt  very  weak  and 
ill;  but  somehow  or  other  I  managed  to  crawl 
into  bed,  where  I  lay  for  an  hour  or  so.  As 
luck  would  have  it,  the  servant  came  up  to 
fill  the  water- jug,  and  I  asked  her  to  bring 
me  some  cocoa  and  bread  and  butter.  The 
food  revived  me;  but  I  was  too  weak  to  get 


THE  BOMB  289 

up,  and  next  day  the  weakness  continued, 
and  I  was  surprised  to  see  how  pale  and 
drawn  my  face  was,  that  used  to  be  rather 
round  and  well   covered. 

Days  passed,  and  I  got  gradually  stronger; 
but  my  nerves  were  all  ashake  for  months. 
I  used  to  sit  in  the  chair  by  the  window  for 
hours  without  moving,  while  the  tears  poured 
weakly  from  my  eyes. 

Strange  to  say,  when  the  verdict  came  and 
the  anxiety  was  over,  I  began  to  recover  a 
little.  I  at  once  made  up  my  mind  to  go 
back  to  Chicago  and  give  myself  up,  and  this 
resolve  having  laid  my  cruel  doubts,  I  began 
to  sleep  better.  But  a  few  days  afterward  I  re- 
ceived another  letter  from  Chicago,  which  turn- 
ed my  resolution  into  an  entirely  new  direction. 

It  was  this  letter  which  brought  me  back 
to  life  and  life's  purpose  again:  "Jack  seems 
very  anxious  about  you,"  Ida  wrote;  "he 
hopes  you  will  write  the  story  of  his  illness 
and  your  exile.  *Tell  him,'  he  says  again 
and  again,  'he  was  born  a  writer,  and  one 
good  book  is  worth  a  thousand  deeds.  I 
rely  on  him  to  write  and  do  nothing  else.  .  .  .'" 

Perhaps  Lingg  was  right;  at  any  rate,  his 
advice  held  me,  and  I  began  at  once  to  write 
the  story  as  I  have  set  it  forth  here,  and  the 
writing  of  it — the  purpose  and  the  labour — 
brought  me  slowly  back  to  life. 


290  THE  BOMB 

At  first  I  wrote  merely  as  a  reporter,  and 
found  that  after  a  hundred  pages  I  was  still 
writing  about  my  own  boyhood.  I  tore  up 
all  I  had  written  and  began  again,  determined 
to  leave  out  everything  which  did  not  illus- 
trate the  main  theme,  and  this  determination, 
in  spite  of  my  want  of  talent  and  painful 
inexperience,  is  pulling  me  through;  but  no  one 
could  be  more  painfully  conscious  than  I  am 
how  unworthy  the  writing  is  of  the  subject. 
I  am  acutely  aware,  too,  that  this  book  is 
only  interesting  when  I  am  dealing  with  great 
persons,  with  Lingg,  and  Ida,  and  Elsie,  and 
Parsons,  so  I  will  return  to  them,  and  my 
story,  for  the  greatest  and  most  terrible  things 
are  still  to  tell. 

All  this  time  I  was  not  able  to  get  the  notion 
out  of  my  head  that  Lingg  would  not  go 
sheep-like  to  the  scaffold.  To  the  very  last 
I  had  expected  him  to  execute  justice  on  his 
justicers,  and  end  the  trial  in  open  court  with 
a  bomb.  If  he  had  not  done  this  it  was  be- 
cause it  was  impossible.  He  had  probably 
been  kept  under  the  strictest  watch.  But 
now  I  felt  sure  the  watch  would  be  relaxed, 
and  Lingg's  daring  and  resolution  were  so 
extraordinary  that  he  would  probably  do 
something  yet  to  strike  terror  into  his  oppo- 
nents. 

Meanwhile  hope  that  the  sentence  might  be 


THE  BOMB  291 

mitigated  was  not  abandoned.  An  application 
for  a  new  trial  was  made  to  Judge  Gary  and 
was  refused;  but  that  was  only  what  might 
have  been  expected. 

About  this  time  my  heart  was  buoyed  up 
by  the  fact  that  a  change  in  popular  feeling 
seemed  to  be  taking  place  in  Chicago.  In 
the  late  summer  the  people  began  to  prepare 
for  the  elections,  and  to  the  astonishment  of 
the  capitalists,  the  Labour  Party  went  from 
triumph  to  triumph.  No  doubt,  as  a  con- 
sequence of  these  successes,  the  judicial  as- 
pect of  the  case  altered  for  the  better.  On 
Thanksgiving  Day,  the  twenty-fifth  of  Novem- 
ber, Captain  Black  got  a  supersedeas  or  stay 
of  execution  of  the  vile  sentence.  This  su- 
persedeas allowed  an  appeal  to  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  Captain  Black  began  at  once 
to  prepare. 

The  fogs  of  November  and  December 
drove  me  from  London,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  prospects  of  my  friends  were 
brighter;  in  spite,  too,  of  the  fact  that  I  was 
beginning  to  make  some  little  progress  with 
my  book.  Work  in  the  gloom  and  grime 
and  dirt  had  become  almost  impossible  to 
me.  I  was  terribly  depressed;  my  nerves 
seemed  to  give  way  utterly  in  the  semi-dark- 
ness and  filth.  So  I  seized  the  first  oppor- 
tunity and  took  steamer  for  Bordeaux.     The 


292  THE  BOMB 

passage  cost  very  little,  a  couple  of  pounds 
for  the  four  days.  We  had  a  very  stormy 
passage;  but  that  was  to  be  expected  in  the 
Bay  of  Biscay,  and  long  before  we  got  to 
Bordeaux  the  air  was  clear  and  light,  and  the 
wind  had  blown  away  all  the  depressing  fogs. 
I  found  a  room  in  a  little  lane  on  the  vine- 
clad  outskirts  of  the  town,  and  lived  there 
cheaply  for  the  winter.  I  managed  almost  to 
cover  my  expenses  by  what  I  wrote  for  "Rey- 
nolds'," so  that  everything  I  did  on  the  book 
seemed  to  me  clear  gain.  The  worst  of  my 
sojourn  in  Bordeaux  was  that  I  was  almost 
completely  cut  off  from  the  American  world. 
The  papers  held  no  foreign  news  worth  talk- 
ing about;  the  French,  indeed,  seem  to  be- 
\1  lieve  that  the  smallest  thing  which  happens 
\  in  France  is  more  important  than  the  greatest 
thing  which  happens  in  any  other  country. 
There  is  an  insularity  of  mind  about  them 
which  is  astonishing.  They  have  lived  so 
long  with  the  idea  that  they  are  the  first  nation 
in  the  world,  and  their  language  the  most 
important  language,  that  they  have  not  yet 
awakened  to  the  fact  that  they  are  only  a 
second-rate  nation,  and  English  and  Russian, 
and  even  German,  are  incomparably  more 
important  tongues  than  French.  They  are 
like  men  in  a  class  of  growing  youths; 
they  imagine  themselves  stronger  and  wiser, 


THE  BOMB  293 

whereas     they    are    only    older   and    more 
vicious. 

Early  in  March  I  made  my  way  to  Paris, 
and  from  Paris  in  a  few  days  I  went  on  to 
Cologne;  there  I  got  in  touch  with  the  world 
again,  and  learnt  that  on  the  thirteenth  of 
March  Captain  Black's  appeal  had  been 
laid  before  the  Supreme  Court.  Judgment, 
however,  was  not  expected  for  some  time. 

I  found  a  socialist  club  in  Cologne,  and, 
indeed,  in  every  German  town  which  I  visited. 
I  was  afraid  to  go  freely  to  the  meetings;  but 
from  time  to  time  I  attended  some  of  the 
lectures  and  found  that  in  Germany,  at  least, 
the  new  creed  was  every  day  making  new 
converts. 

In  the  course  of  that  summer  I  wrote  a 
good  deal  for  the  advanced  German  papers, 
esepcially  for  the  socialist  sheets;  but  I  found 
that  Lingg's  idea  that  a  perfect  modern  State 
should  embrace    both  socialism   and  indivi- 
dualism   was    not    acceptable    to    socialists. 
They  insisted  that  co-operalion  would  have^ 
to  take  the  place  of  competition  altogether^ 
as  the  motive-power  in  life,  which  I  could  ' 
not  at  all  bring  myself  to  believe.     Again  and 
again  I  pointed  out  that  all  the  evils  of  our 
society  arose  from  the  fact  that  the  individual 
had  combined  with  others  and  so  increased 
his  own  strength,  and  was  thus  enabled  to 


294  THE  BOMB 

gain  control  of  great  departments  of  industry 
which  he  had  no  business  to  control,  and 
thereby  annex  profits  which  should  have  gone 
into  the  coffers  of  the  State.  The  world 
seemed  to  me  gone  mad.  Seven  out  of  ten 
people  one  met  believed  in  unrestrained  in- 
dividualism, and  declared  that  the  gigantic 
evils  of  it  were  only  accidental  and  unimpor- 
tant, whereas  the  other  three  were  certain 
that  competition  spelt  nothing  but  waste  and 
fraud  and  shameless  greed,  and  declared  that 
with  co-operation  the  millennium  would  come 
upon  earth.  I  stood  between  these  two  par- 
ties, and  for  my  moderation  was  regarded 
as  an  enemy  by  both.  The  individualists 
would  not  have  me  because  I  could  not  accept 
their  extravagant  lies;  the  socialists  would 
not  have  me  because  I  could  not  go  the  whole 
way  with  them.  Again  and  again  I  was 
forced  to  see  the  truth  of  Lingg's  saying  that 
the  modern  State  was  not  complex  enough: 
there  should  be  many  more  Government 
appointments  at  small  salaries  for  people  with 
extraordinary  peculiarities  or  gifts  which  en- 
abled them  to  see  and  do  things  that  other 
men  did  not  see  and  could  not  do.  Progress 
Jn  society  comes  usually  from  what  scientists 
call  "sports,"  men  or  women  of  some  extra- 
I ordinary  gift,  and  the  "sports"  in  a  democ- 
I  racy,  I  noticed,  have  little  chance  of  survival. 


THE  BOMB  295 

The  vast  body  of  brutal  public  opinion,  as  I 
had  found  in  America,  overwhelms  them, 
hates  them,  or  at  least  is  impatient  of  their 
superiority,  and  indeed  of  their  mere  exist- 
ence, and  so  the  f^p t  of  progress  are  clogged. 


CHAPTER  Xn 

AS  the  months  went  on  I  began  to  look 
for  a  good  issue,  but  towards  the  end  of 
the  summer  my  hopes  were  suddenly  blasted. 
On  the  twentieth  of  September  the  Supreme 
Court  gave  its  judgment,  affirming  the  judg- 
ment of  Judge  Gary's  Court  with  one  voice. 
When  I  was  able  to  read  the  "opinion"  of 
the  Supreme  Court  in  the  American  papers 
I  gasped  with  astonishment;  it  was  simply 
manufactured.  Statements  were  assumed  as 
indisputably  true  which  were  absolutely  false, 
which  were  never  even  mentioned  in  evi- 
dence in  the  lower  Court.  The  higher  one 
went,  the  worse  one  fared;  I  ought  to  have 
divined  it.  The  better  the  judges  were  paid, 
the  higher  their  position,  the  more  certain 
they  were  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  established 
order;  on  every  single  point  the  Supreme 
Court  judges  warped  the  law  to  suit  their 
prejudices. 

As  was  to  be  expected,  the  Labour  Party 
did  not  accept  this  infamous  verdict  as  de- 
cisive. The  "opinion"  created  intense  ex- 
citement among  the  labour  leaders,  and  the 
labour    organizations    in    Chicago    prepared 


THE  BOMB  297 

to  agitate  boldly.  The  capitalists,  however, 
were  ready  for  the  fight.  A  labour  meeting 
of  protest  was  called  and  well  attended,  but 
was  boycotted  by  the  capitalist  press.  That 
was  not  enough;  stronger  measures,  therefore, 
were  at  once  adopted.  Mrs.  Parsons  was 
going  about  exciting  sympathy  by  distribut- 
ing copies  of  that  part  of  her  husband's  speech 
at  the  first  trial  which  contained  an  appeal 
to  the  American  people,  based  on  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence.  She  was  arrested 
and  thrown  into  prison,  and  immediately  on 
top  of  this,  all  meetings  in  favour  of  the  con- 
demned men  were  forbidden  in  Chicago. 
Evidently  the  capitalists  were  not  only  strain- 
ing but  degrading  the  law  in  order  to  take 
vengeance  upon  their  enemies.  Then  I 
learned  tardily  that  Captain  Black  had  gone 
to  New  York  to  take  counsel  with  General 
Pryor,  the  ablest  counsel  in  America,  on  the 
best  method  of  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States.  He  could  not,  how- 
ever, get  evidence  to  lay  before  the  Supreme 
Court;  the  use  of  the  "record"  of  the  Court 
below  was  refused  to  him,  for  the  first  time 
in  American  history.  When  I  read  this  I 
knew  that  matters  were  desperate,  and  that 
whatever  I  could  do  must  be  done  quickly. 
At  once  I  went  back  to  London  and  began 
to  stir  up  the  Radical  clubs.     Every  one  of 


298  THE  BOMB 

them  heard  me  with  sympathy  and  acted  on 
my  advice.  I  found,  too,  some  notable  En- 
glish men  and  women  working  in  the  same 
cause,  particularly  Doctor  Aveling,  and  Elea- 
nor Marx  Aveling.  Mr.  Hyndman,  also,  was 
indefatigable,  both  speaking  and  writing  in 
favour  at  least  of  a  fair  trial,  and  William 
Morris  imperilled  his  reputation  in  America 
quite  cheerfully  by  writing  an  impassioned 
appeal  on  behalf  of  the  condemned  men. 
Two  or  three  Americans,  too,  distinguished 
themselves  in  the  same  way,  especially  Wil- 
liam D.  Howells  and  Colonel  Ingersoll,  the 
famous  lecturer,  who  showed  his  accustomed 
courage  by  writing  against  what  he  dared  to 
call  "a  judicial  murder." 

The  Supreme  Court  had  fixed  the  eleventh 
of  November  for  the  execution,  and  I  began 
to  fear  for  the  first  time  that  these  men  would 
indeed  be  executed  on  that  day,  for  the  ex- 
tremity of  need  only  discovered  the  weakness 
and  want  of  organization  of  the  proletariat, 
the  overwhelming  strength  of  the  capitalist 
established  order.  In  London  the  protests 
of  the  Radical  clubs  were  scarcely  noticed  by 
the  middle-class  papers.  Every  one  of  the 
great  sheets,  like  "The  Times"  and  "The 
Telegraph,"  simply  announced  the  date  of 
the  execution  and  the  finding  of  the  Supreme 
Court  as  ordinary  facts  which  must  have  been 


THE  BOMB  299 

expected.  Justice  was  to  be  done,  they  all 
said,  and  the  sooner  the  deed  was  accom- 
plished the  better;  and  that  was  the  spirit  in 
America,  too,  only  there  it  was  intensified  by 
a  certain  amount  of  fear  and  rage.  "At  last 
we  are  coming  to  the  end,"  said  "The  Chicago 
Tribune,"  "and  we  shall  soon  be  quit  of 
monsters  who  are  better  out  of  life." 

That  seven  out  of  the  eight  men  were  en- 
tirely innocent  seemed  to  concern  no  one,  and 
interest  no  one  in  particular.  If  one  spoke 
about  it  in  a  public-house  or  in  the  street,  one 
met  simply  cold  looks,  unwilling  attention, 
shrugging  shoulders.  I  was  forced  to  the/ 
conclusion  that  the  number  of  people  in  this  ( 
world  who  care  for  justice  or  right,  apart  from  ) 
their  own  interests,  is  very  small.  Now,  as  in  / 
the  old  days,  there  were  not  five  righteous  to 
be  found  in  a  city.  Anger  and  rage  seemed  to 
give  me  back  some  of  my  strength.  Again 
I  wrote  to  Ida,  saying  that  I  was  eager  to 
return  to  Chicago.  I  pleaded  with  her  as  I 
knew  she  would  plead  with  Lingg,  and  again 
our  letters  crossed;  for  in  the  last  days  of 
October  I  received  a  letter  from  her  in  which 
Jack  thanked  me  for  having  kept  my  promise 
and  bade  me  watch  the  end  carefully,  for  "a 
good  witness  would  be  needed."  I  could  hear 
him  say  the  words,  and  at  once  I  set  myself 
to  get  every  particle  of  information  I  could 


300  THE  BOMB 

about  the  condemned  men  and  their  treat- 
ment. What  I  learned,  and  what  came  of 
it,  and  the  terrible  end,  I  must  now  tell  as 
best  I  can. 

The  so-called  anarchists  had  been  con- 
fined for  the  fifteen  months  in  what  was  called 
"Murderers'  Row"  in  the  Cook  County  Jail. 
Their  cells  were  small,  square  rooms,  with  one 
heavily  barred  window,  high  up,  and  a  heavy 
door.  Outside  the  ordinary  door  there  was 
another  door  made  up  of  bars  of  iron,  which 
was  used  in  summer  for  purposes  of  ventilation. 

The  head  jailer's  name  was  Folz,  a  veteran 
in  the  service,  who  was  careful,  watchful,  yet 
considerate.  From  time  to  time  the  prisoners 
were  permitted  to  talk  with  their  friends;  but 
then  only  in  the  so-called  **  Lawyers'  Cage," 
a  cell  ten  feet  by  sixteen,  the  door  of  which 
was  not  only  made  of  iron  bars;  but  was 
covered,  too,  with  a  close  network  of  wire. 
Outside  this  stood  the  person  talking  to  the 
prisoner;  inside,  the  prisoner  with  his  death- 
watch  in  close  attendance.  As  soon  as  the 
Supreme  Court  had  given  its  judgment  and 
fixed  the  date  of  execution,  the  harshness  of 
the  prisoners'  treatment  was  sensibly  mitigated. 
The  wives  of  the  condemned  men  were  per- 
mitted to  visit  them  nearly  every  day,  and  Miss 
Miller  was  allowed  to  see  Lingg  as  freely  as 
if  she  had  been  his  wife. 


THE  BOMB  301 

In  the  early  days  of  November  Captain 
Black  strained  every  nerve  to  get  some  at 
least  of  the  prisoners  pardoned;  he  was  con- 
vinced of  their  innocence,  and  laboured  as 
only  an  able  and  kindly  man  could  labour  on 
their  behalf.  At  length  he  got  Schwab  and 
Fielden  and  Spies  to  sign  a  petition  for  par- 
don. The  petition  was  based  on  several 
reasons :  the  first  was  that  they  were  innocent  of 
the  bomb-throwing;  the  second  was  like  unto 
it,  that  they  had  no  knowledge  whatever  of 
the  bomb-throwing;  and  the  third  was  founded 
on  the  fact  that  at  the  Haymarket  meeting 
they  had  advised  peaceable  measures.  This 
petition  was  forwarded  to  the  Governor,  and 
every  one  hoped  that  Governor  Oglesby 
would  do  something  to  mitigate  the  terrible 
sentence. 

Every  effort  was  then  concentrated  on  the 
attempt  to  get  Parsons,  Engel,  and  Fischer 
to  petition  at  least  for  their  lives.  Mrs.  Fis- 
cher and  Mrs.  Engel  did  what  they  could, 
while  Mrs.  Parsons  would  not  consent  to  try 
to  influence  her  husband  in  any  way.  Par- 
sons absolutely  refused  to  sign  any  petition 
that  did  not  contain  a  demand  for  uncondi- 
tional pardon  and  absolute  liberty.  At  length 
the  three  signed  this  petition,  and  Captain 
Black  brought  it  and  laid  it  before  Lingg, 
who  first  of  all  pointed  out  that  it  was  quite 


302  THE  BOMB 

useless,  and  then  declared  that  even  if  it  were 
thinkable  that  such  a  pardon  would  be  granted, 
he  would  not  ask  for  it.  It  was  only  when 
Mrs.  Engel  came  and  implored  him  to  do  it 
for  her  husband's  sake  that  Lingg  at  last 
yielded,  and  that  petition,  too,  went  to  the 
Governor.  The  Governor's  answer  was  re- 
served till  the  tenth  of  November;  but  it 
leaked  out  that  he  would  remit  the  death 
sentence  on  Schwab  and  Fielden  at  least. 
It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  he  would  take 
into  account  the  petition  for  an  unconditional 
pardon  which  had  been  addressed  to  him  by 
the  other  four  men. 

While  these  things  were  going  on  an  event 
occurred  which  once  more  lashed  the  passions 
of  men  to  fever  heat.  In  spite  of  a  good  deal 
of  laxity  in  the  management  of  the  prison. 
Jailer  Folz  had  the  cells  searched  from  time 
to  time.  Fortunately,  or  unfortunately,  he 
had  the  cells  searched  on  the  Sunday  morning, 
the  sixth  of  November,  the  first  day  of  the 
fatal  week.  Nothing  was  found  in  any  of 
the  cells  except  Lingg's,  and  in  Lingg's  cell 
three  bombs  were  found,  it  was  said,  by  an 
accident. 

The  accident  was  peculiar  enough  to  carry 
conviction  with  it.  Lingg,  it  seems,  had 
asked  again  and  again  for  oranges  all  through 
the  summer,  and  Miss  Miller  brought  him 


THE  BOMB  303 

oranges,  which  he  kept  in  a  little  wooden 
box  by  his  bedside.  When  the  "cell  was  opened 
to  be  searched  he  was  asked  to  step  into  the 
"Lawyer's  Cage."  He  got  up  at  once,  and 
asked  quietly — 

"May  I  take  my  oranges  with  me?" 
"No,"   replied   the   jailers;    "please   leave 
everything;  you   don't  need   to  eat  oranges 
for  two  minutes." 

Lingg  had  already  taken  the  little  wooden 
box  in  his  hand;  as  they  refused  him  he  tossed 
it  carelessly  on  the  bed  and  went  out  into 
the  "Lawyer's  Cage."  The  policemen  paid 
no  attention  at  first  to  the  little  box;  they 
searched  the  whole  cell  till  they  came  to  the 
bed;  then  Deputy-Sheriff  Hogan  took  up  the 
box,  opened  it,  and  shoved  it  along  outside 
the  door  into  the  corridor.  As  luck  would 
have  it  the  box  went  too  far,  went  through 
the  railings  of  the  corridor  and  fell  on  the 
floor  beneath;  there  it  burst,  and  the  oranges 
rolled  all  over  the  place.  Hogan,  seeing  the 
result  of  his  push,  went  to  the  railings  of  the 
corridor  and  looked  over,  and  noticing  that 
all  the  prisoners  were  concerned  with  these 
oranges,  called  to  them  to  bring  them  up;  but 
just  as  he  was  turning  away,  he  saw  one  of 
the  prisoners  had  stripped  the  yellow  skin 
from  an  orange  and  discovered  a  layer  of 
cotton-wool  underneath.     At  once  he  sprang 


304  THE  BOMB 

down  the  stairs  and  seized  the  box.  On 
closer  examination,  according  to  the  police 
report,  three  bombs  were  found  among  the 
oranges,  concealed  in  orange  skins. 

After  this  discovery  Lingg  was  removed  to 
a  separate  cell,  number  eleven,  altogether 
apart  from  the  others,  and  watched  night 
and  day  by  his  death-watch.  Had  he  meant 
to  blow  the  jail  up,  or  to  use  bombs  on  the 
very  place  of  execution.^     I  could  not  divine. 

The  discovery  in  Lingg's  cell  set  all  Ameri- 
ca in  a  quiver  of  rage  and  fear.  Chicago  was 
given  over  to  panic;  the  governor  of  the  pri- 
son was  attacked  in  the  press;  the  conduct  of 
the  jailers  blamed,  and  the  sheriffs  condemned 
on  all  sides.  Too  much  licence  had  been 
allowed.  These  anarchists  were  fanatics — 
murderers  and  madmen — and  must  be  watched 
like  wild  beasts,  and  killed  like  wild  beasts. 
The  press  was  unanimous.  Fear  dictated 
the  words  that  rage  penned;  but  what  manner 
of  men  these  anarchists  were  was  soon  to 
appear,  beyond  all  doubt,  from  their  deeds. 
They  were  not  to  be  painted  by  the  lies  and 
slanders  of  terrified  enemies,  but  by  their 
own  acts  in  the  light  of  day  to  all  men's  won- 
der. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

/^F  the  seven  accused  men  only  one  was 
^^  an  American,  Albert  Parsons,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  the  higher  the  tide  of  execration 
rose  against  the  other  anarchists,  as  foreigners 
and  murderers,  the  more  the  American  mob 
desired  to  make  an  exception  in  favour  of 
Parsons.  It  is  the  tendency  of  masses  of  men 
to  praise  and  blame  at  haphazard  and  extra- 
vagantly. Their  heroes  are  demi-gods,  their 
enemies  fiends.  As  I  have  shown,  public 
opinion  had  turned  Louis  Lingg  into  a  devil, 
a  monster,  a  wild  beast,  and  this  same  public 
opinion  now  tried  to  turn  Parsons  into  an 
angel  of  light.  It  must  be  confessed  that  he 
touched  the  sympathies  of  Americans  on 
many  sides.  He  was  not  only  a  native-born 
American,  but  a  Southerner  who  had  fought 
as  a  boy  for  the  Confederate  States,  and  who 
after  the  war  had  approved  the  conditions 
imposed  by  the  North.  In  '79  he  was  nomi- 
nated as  the  Labour  Candidate  for  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  United  States,  and  declined  the 
honour. 

This  man's  past  proved  beyond  doubt  that 
he  was  absolutely  disinterested;  a  fanatic,  if 


306  THE  BOMB 

you  will,  but  a  man  of  highest  principle;  a 
good  man,  that  is,  and  not  a  bad  one.  It  was 
impossible  even  for  malice  to  condemn  Par- 
sons as  a  murderer,  as  Lingg,  Spies,  Engel, 
Fischer,  and  the  others  were  condemned. 
Besides,  he  had  not  been  caught  by  the  police; 
with  singular  magnanimity  he  had  given 
himself  up,  and  of  his  own  impulse  faced  the 
danger.  The  sincerity  of  his  motives,  his 
noble  character,  the  eloquence  of  his  defence, 
had  made  a  deep  impression  on  the  people. 
Governor  Oglesby,  who  was  already  minded 
to  reduce  the  sentences  of  Fielden  and  Schwab 
to  imprisonment  for  life,  could  not  overlook 
the  claims  of  Parsons.  Every  one  wanted 
to  condemn  the  foreign  anarchists  as  a  body, 
and  not  to  excite  further  sympathy  with  them 
by  forcing  Parsons  to  share  their  fate.  Ac- 
cordingly, on  the  Wednesday  morning,  the 
ninth  of  November,  Captain  Black  was  in- 
formed that  if  Parsons  would  sign  a  petition 
for  mercy  without  any  further  words,  the 
Governor  would  grant  it  in  view  of  his  past 
life. 

Captain  Black,  who  was  of  high  character 
and  greatly  esteemed  by  the  people  of  Chica- 
go, hurried  at  once  to  the  prison,  and  used 
every  argument  that  he  could  think  of  to  in- 
duce Parsons  to  sign  a  colourless  petition, 
merely   asking   for   mercy.     To   his    eternal 


THE  BOMB  307 

honour   Parsons   absolutely   refused   to    sign 
any   such  document. 

"I  am  innocent,  Captain  Black"  he  ex- 
claimed, "and  therefore  I  am  entitled  not  to 
pity  and  a  commutation  of  my  sentence;  but 
to  freedom,  and  such  honour  as  I  may  deserve"; 
and  when  pressed  by  Black,  who  told  him  that 
this  was  his  last  chance,  he  pointed  out  that 
he  could  not  take  it,  even  if  he  wanted  to. 

"It  would  seal  the  fate  of  my  comrades," 
he  said,  "and  would  be  on  my  part  a  betrayal, 
or  at  least  an  act  of  desertion.  I  would  rather 
be  hung  a  thousand  times." 

In  spite  of  everything  Captain  Black  could 
do,  in  spite  even  of  the  entreaties  of  his  wife. 
Parsons  held  to  his  decision.  The  next 
morning  the  Governor  gave  his  answer  to 
the  petitions.  He  commuted  to  imprison- 
ment for  life  the  sentences  of  Schwab  and 
Fielden,  leaving  Spies,  Fischer,  Engel,  Par- 
sons, and  Lingg  to  their  fate.  The  execu- 
tion was  fixed  for  the  following  morning. 

No  one  was  satisfied.  Nine  out  of  ten  Ameri- 
cans cared  nothing  for  Fielden  or  Schwab; 
but  that  Parsons  should  be  hung,  Parsons 
who  out  of  loyalty  to  his  comrades  had 
refused  to  accept  a  free  pardon,  seemed  mon- 
strous and  horrible,  even  to  the  most  heated 
partisans  —  an  infamous  sentence.  At  the 
same  time  they  comforted  their  vanity  with 


308  THE  BOMB 

the  reflection  that  **the  only  fine  man  of  the 
crew  was  a  native-born  American."  They 
were  soon  to  be  undeceived,  soon  to  be  taught 
that  among  the  despised  foreigners  v^^as  one 
man,  in  character  and  courage,  head  and 
shoulders  above  his  fellows. 

All  the  while,  since  the  discovery  on  the 
Sunday  morning  of  the  bombs,  Lingg  had 
been  kept  by  himself  in  cell  11,  and  had  been 
denied  to  every  one.  The  jail  clerk,  Mr.  B. 
Price,  took  turn  in  looking  after  him,  with 
his  death-watch,  Deputy-Sheriff  Osborne. 
Captain  Osborne  seems  to  have  been  very 
kind  to  Lingg,  who  naturally  responded  to 
sympathy  as  a  watch  to  its  main-spring. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  tenth,  Os- 
borne communicated  to  him  the  decision  of 
the  Governor,  and  told  him,  too,  how  in  spite 
of  every  temptation  Parsons  had  refused  to 
ask  for  mercy  or  place  himself  in  an  excep- 
tional position.  When  Lingg  heard  it  he  cried — 

"That's  great,  great!  Well  done.  Parsons, 
well  done!" 

Shortly  afterwards  Lingg  took  a  ring  from 
his  finger,  handed  it  to  Mr.  Osborne,  and 
desired  him  to  keep  it  as  a  memento  of  his 
kindness   to  him. 

"Take  it  to  the  window,"  he  said,  "and 
look  at  it.  It  is  not  worth  much,  but  perhaps 
on  that  account  you  will  prize  it  the  more." 


THE  BOMB  309 

Captain  Osborne  took  it  to  the  window, 
not  to  look  at  it,  as  he  afterwards  said,  but 
to  hide  his  own  emotion;  and  while  he  was  at 
the  window  he  was  shaken  and  thrown  against 
the  wall  by  a  terrific  explosion.  Before  he 
could  even  see,  or  know  what  had  happened, 
the  door  was  torn  open.  The  jailer  and  his 
assistant  rushed  in.  Already  the  fumes  of 
the  explosion  were  passing  away,  and  Lingg 
was  seen  lying  on  his  face  on  the  bed  in  the 
corner  of  his  cell,  in  a  pool  of  blood. 

What  followed  I  take  from  the  account 
which  appeared  in  "The  New  York  Tribune" 
of  the  eleventh  of  November,  a  paper  which 
certainly  showed  Lingg  no  sympathy;  but 
great  deeds  and  great  men  can  be  seen  even 
through  the  foul  mists  engendered  by  hatred 
and  ignorance,  and  the  reports  of  one's  ene- 
mies are  not  to  be  suspected  of  flattery. 

"Streams  of  blood  deluged  the  bedding 
and  the  floor.  Pieces  of  flesh  and  bone  were 
scattered  in  every  direction.  The  gloom  of 
the  cell,  the  sickening  vapours  of  the  explosion, 
were  enough  to  appal  the  stoutest  heart. 

"Tor  God's  sake,  man,  what  have  you 
done.P'  exclaimed  Turnkey  O'Neil. 

"There  was  no  response,  not  even  a  sign 
of  breathing.  A  light  was  quickly  brought. 
Jailer  Folz  felt  the  pulse   of  the  criminal. 


310  THE  BOMB 

Had  he  succeeded  in  cheating  the  gallows? 
There  was  no  time  to  answer  the  question. 
Aided  by  the  deputies  the  jailer  carried  the 
body  to  the  door  of  the  cell,  out  into  the  cage, 
and  into  the  office.  A  bloodstained  trail 
marked  the  way.  It  was  an  awful  sight. 
The  features  of  the  criminal  were  bathed  in 
blood.  The  entire  lower  jaw  was  gone,  and 
part  of  the  upper.  Ragged  strips  of  flesh 
hung  down  below  the  eyes.  His  chest  seemed 
to  be  stripped  of  flesh  to  the  very  bones. 
The  eyes  were  closed,  and  the  right  hand 
convulsively  clutched  the  jailer's  coat.  But 
not  a  groan  escaped  him.  .  .  . 

"Doctors  were  sent  for  in  every  direction. 
Dr.  Gray,  the  assistant  county  physician, 
responded  almost  immediately.  By  his  orders 
Lingg  was  taken  to  the  bathroom,  back  of 
the  jailer's  office.  Here  he  was  laid  upon 
two  small  tables  hastily  pushed  together.  A 
couple  of  pillows  were  placed  under  his  head. 
In  an  instant  they  were  dyed  a  deep  crimson, 
and  a  dark  pool  of  blood  formed  on  the  floor 
below.  The  physician,  bending  over  him  at 
work  with  a  glistening  knife  and  needles,  cut 
away  the  shattered  pieces  of  bone  and  shreds 
of  bleeding  flesh.  It  was  the  work  of  a  few 
minutes  only  to  tie  the  severed  arteries.  The 
doctor  fills  a  small  sponge  with  some  liquid, 
and  plunges  it  down  the  awful-looking  cavity 


THE  BOMB  311 

that  leads  to  the  throat.  The  dying  man's 
big  chest  slowly  begins  to  rise  and  fall.  He 
was  not  dead  yet.  His  heart  and  lungs  still 
performed  their  functions.  Up  and  down, 
up  and  down,  heaved  the  chest,  and  at  each 
motion  torrents  of  blood  poured  from  the 
torn  palate  into  the  throat.  Unceasingly 
the  doctor  and  his  assistants,  who  had  ar- 
rived in  the  meantime,  continued  to  apply 
the  sponge.  At  last  the  hand  of  the  unfortu- 
nate man  moved.  It  clutched  the  blanket 
thrown  over  his  body.  His  whole  frame 
trembled  for  a  moment,  and  then  he  raised 
that  terrible  head  and  the  face  mangled  out 
of  all  semblance  of  humanity.  For  a  mo- 
ment he  opened  his  eyes  and  coughed  a 
hoarse,  gurgling  cough,  and  with  it  up  came 
again  a  stream  of  blood.  It  was  a  horrifying 
sight. ... 

"The  Sheriflf  at  last  arrived.  His  face 
blanched  as  he  glanced  at  the  spectacle  be- 
fore him,  and  then  he  turned  away.  Hot 
blankets  were  brought,  and  hot  water  applied 
to  the  feet  of  the  fast  sinking  man.  Present- 
ly the  flow  of  blood  was  stopped,  and  the 
bandages  round  the  lower  part  of  the  face 
gave  the  distorted  features  a  more  human 
appearance.  Hypodermic  injections  of  ether 
were  given  every  few  minutes.  Their  bare 
arms  covered  with  blood,  the  physicians  con- 


312  THE  BOMB 

tinued  their  frightful  task.  At  last  they  were 
rewarded  for  their  labours. 

"The  mangled  body  gave  tokens  of  life; 
the  signs  of  returning  consciousness  were 
unmistakable. 

***Open  your  eyes,*  said  County  Physician 
Mayer.     Lingg  slowly  opened  his  eyes. 

"*Now  shut  them,'  said  the  doctor.  They 
closed   mechanically   almost. 

*'In  the  midst  of  the  operations  upon  him 
the  anarchist  raised  his  hand  to  the  doctors. 
They  paused.  He  essayed  to  speak.  It  was 
impossible.  The  tongue,  torn  at  the  roof, 
falls  back  into  the  throat.  He  makes  a  mo- 
tion as  if  desiring  to  write.  Paper  and  pencil 
were  laid  at  his  side.  Slowly,  but  with  a 
firm  hand,  he  traced  the  words — 

"*Besser  anlehnen  am  Riicken.  Wenn  ich 
liege,  kann  ich  nicht  athmen.' 

"*Better  support  to  my  back.  When  I 
lie  flat,  I  cannot  breathe.' 

Was  there  ever  such  superhuman  resolu- 
tion ? 

"He  slowly  turns  upon  his  right  side.  His 
eyes  become  glassy.  A  pallor  overspreads 
his  features.  It  is  evident  that  the  end  is 
near. 

"'Are  you  in  pain.?^'  asks  the  physician. 

"A  nod  of  the  head  is  the  only  answer;  but 
not  a  groan,  not  a  sign  of  suffering.  .  .  . 


THE  BOMB  313 

"At  half -past  two  the  County  Physician 
went  to  the  telephone  in  the  jailer's  office  and 
sent  the  following  message  to  the  Sheriff — 

"'Lingg  is  sinking  fast;  he  cannot  last  much 
longer.' 

"Already  there  began  the  stertorous  breath- 
ing. The  pallor  deepened.  The  eyes  re- 
sumed their  glassy  stare.  A  tremor  passed 
through  the  body.  There  was  a  quick  and 
sudden  upheaval  of  the  breast.  For  a  minute 
or  so  the  breathing  continued.  Then  every- 
thing was  quiet.  The  doctor  looked  once 
more  upon  the  face,  and  then  said— 

"'He  is  dead.' 

"Jailer  Folz  took  his  watch  out  and  com- 
pared it  with  the  timepiece  on  the  wall.  It 
was  exactly  nine  minutes  to  three  o'clock. 
The  dead  anarchist  lay  upon  the  table  with 
his  breast  bared.  The  doctors  left  the  room. 
There  were  only  a  turnkey  and  a  reporter  to 
close  his  eyes.  The  latter  attempted  to  do 
it,  but  they  would  not  close.  He  finally  at- 
tempted to  do  it  with  some  pennies  which 
he  had  in  his  pocket,  but  they  were  not  heavy 
enough.  A  policeman  at  that  moment  entered 
the  room.  It  was  with  satisfaction  almost  that 
he  looked  upon  the  murderer  of  his  comrades. 

"'Have  you  some  nickels  with  you  to  close 
his  eyes.?'  he  was  asked.  He  fumbled  with 
his  hand  in  his  pocket;  but  presently  drew  it 


314  THE  BOMB 

away.     'Not  for  that  monster,'  he  declared 
resolutely. 

"Opinions  differ  as  to  the  means  employed 
by  Lingg  to  end  his  miserable  career.  Theo- 
ries are  plentiful;  but  evidence  is  scarce. 
Proof  is  wholly  wanting.  One  thing  can  be 
accepted  with  safety;  it  was  a  high  explosive 
did  the  work." 

This  terrible  occurrence  threw  the  whole 
prison  into  disorder.  The  jailers  ran  about 
like  maniacs;  the  prisoners  screamed  ques- 
tions; the  prison  was  in  an  uproar.  Parsons 
pushed  to  the  bars  of  his  cell  and,  when  he 
heard  what  had  happened,  cried  out,"  Give 
me  one  of  those  bombs;  I  want  to  do  the  same 
thing." 

The  news  of  the  explosion  quickly  spread 
beyond  the  prison  walls,  and  a  crowd  collected 
demanding  information — a  crowd  which  was 
soon  swollen  by  reporters  from  every  paper 
in  the  city.  The  news  got  out  in  driblets, 
and  was  published  in  a  dozen  prints.  The 
city  seemed  to  go  mad;  from  one  end  of  the 
town  to  the  other  men  began  to  arm  them- 
selves, and  the  wildest  tales  were  current. 
There  were  bombs  everywhere.  The  ner- 
vous strain  upon  the  public  had  become  in- 
tolerable. The  stories  circulated  and  be- 
lieved that  afternoon  and  night  seem  now,  as 


THE  BOMB  315 

one  observer  said,  to  belong  to  the  literature 
of  Bedlam.  The  truth  was,  that  the  bombs 
found  in  Lingg's  cell  and  his  desperate  self 
murder  had  frightened  the  good  Chicagoans 
out  of  their  wits.  One  report  had  it  that 
there  were  twenty  thousand  armed  and  des- 
perate anarchists  in  Chicago  who  had  planned 
an  assault  upon  the  jail  for  the  following  morn- 
ing. The  newspaper  oflBces,  the  banks,  the 
Board  of  Trade  building,  the  Town  Hall, 
were  guarded  night  and  day.  Every  citizen 
carried  weapons  openly.  One  paper  publish- 
ed the  fact  that  at  ten  o'clock  on  that  Thurs- 
day night  a  gun  store  was  still  open  in  Madi- 
son Street,  and  crowded  with  men  buying 
revolvers.  The  spectacle  did  not  strike  any 
one  as  in  the  least  strange,  but  natural,  laud- 
able. The  dread  of  some  catastrophe  was  not 
only  in  the  air,  but  in  men's  talk,  in  their  faces. 
There  has  never  been  seen  anything  in  any 
part  of  America  like  the  spectacle  Chicago 
presented  on  the  morning  of  the  eleventh  of 
November.  For  a  block  in  each  direction 
from  the  jail,  ropes  were  stretched  across  the 
street,  and  all  traffic  suspended.  Behind 
the  ropes  were  lines  of  policemen,  armed 
with  rifles,  all  the  way  to  the  jail  the  side- 
walks were  patrolled  by  other  policemen 
armed  to  the  teeth;  the  jail  was  guarded  like 
an  outpost  in  a  battle.    Lines  of  policemen 


816  THE  BOMB 

were  drawn  round  it,  and  from  every  window 
armed  policemen  looked  forth;  the  roof  was 
black  with  them. 

At  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  reporters 
were  admitted  to  the  prison;  after  that,  en- 
trance was  denied  to  every  one.  From  six 
till  close  upon  eleven  o'clock  some  two  hun- 
dred reporters  stood  there,  cooped  up  in  the 
jailer's  oflfice,  waiting.  Wild  stories  were 
whispered  from  one  white  face  to  another, 
stories  that  tried  the  strongest  nerves.  Two 
of  the  reporters  fainted  under  the  strain  and 
had  to  be  taken  outside.  "In  all  my  ex- 
perience," writes  one  of  those  present,  "this 
was  the  only  occasion  on  which  I  ever  saw  an 
American  reporter  break  down  under  any 
punishment,  however  terrible,  to  be  inflicted 
on  somebody  else." 

"It  is  hard,"  says  the  same  eye-witness, 
"now  to  understand  the  power  of  the  infec- 
tional  panic  that  had  seized  upon  the  city 
and  the  jail ;  perhaps  some  idea  of  our  feelings 
may  be  gained  from  the  fact  that  while  we 
waited  there  a  Chicago  newspaper  issued  an 
extra,  seriously  announcing  that  the  jail  had 
been  mined,  and  at  the  moment  of  the  hang- 
ing the  whole  structure  and  all  in  it  were  to 
be  destroyed." 

Lingg's  forecast  of  the  result  of  the  second 
bomb  was  more  than  realized. 


THE  BOMB  317 

Some  time  afterwards  this  same  honest 
reporter  and  eye-witness  gave  a  description 
of  the  judicial  murder  which  should  be  read 
here. 

"The  word  came  at  last;  we  marched  down 
the  dim  corridors  to  the  courtyard  appointed 
for  the  terrible  deed;  we  saw  it  done;  we  saw 
the  four  lives  crushed  out  according  to  the 
fashion  of  .surviving  barbarism.  There  was 
no  mine  exploded;  there  was  no  attack;  the 
Central  Union  did  not  march  its  cohorts  to 
the  jail  nor  elsewhere;  no  armed  or  unarmed 
anarchists  appeared  to  menace  the  supremacy 
of  the  State.  In  all  men's  eyes  there  was 
something  of  the  strain  and  anxiety  that  made 
all  the  faces  I  saw  about  me  look  drawn  and 
pallid;  but  there  was  nowhere  the  lifting  of  a 
lawless  hand  that  day.  It  sounds  now  a 
horrible  and  cruel  thing  to  say,  yet  visibly, 
most  visibly,  all  men's  hearts  were  lightened 
because  those  four  men's  hearts  were  stilled 
in  death. 

"One  other  strange  scene  closed  the  drama,  ^^ 
for  who  that  saw  it  can  ever  forget  that  Sun-  ^^ 
day  funeral  procession,  the  black  hearses,  the 
marching  thousands,  the  miles  upon  miles 
of  densely  packed  and  silent  streets;  the 
sobering  impression  of  the  amnesty  of  death; 
the  still  more  sobering  question  whether  we 


318  THE  BOMB 

had  done  right  ?  Lingg's  self-immolation  and 
the  astounding  courage  with  which  he  had 
borne  his  horrible  sufferings  had  brought  every 
one  to  pity  and  to  doubt.  The  short  Novem- 
ber day  closed  upon  the  services  at  the  ceme- 
tery; in  the  darkness  the  strangely  silent 
crowds  straggled  back  to  the  city.  There 
was  no  outbreak  at  the  graves  or  elsewhere; 
everywhere  this  silence,  like  a  sign  of  brood- 
ing thought." 

And  so  the  long  tragedy  came  at  length  to  its 
end.  I  can  never  tell  what  I  felt  on  reading 
these  reports.  How  I  could  see  it  all!  How 
well  I  understood  Lingg  and  the  reason  of 
his  desperate  act.  What  the  four  bombs  were 
for  I  could  not  imagine  at  the  time,  though  I 
was  soon  to  learn;  but  surely  he  had  used  the 
bomb  on  himself  in  order  to  get  the  terroriz- 
ing effect  he  wanted  without  hurting  any  one 
but  himself.  Think,  too,  of  his  courage 
and  iron  self-control!  How  he  found  per- 
fect words  to  prevent  Osborne  from  suspect- 
ing him,  and  how  when  called  back  to  life 
and  exquisite  torture  by  the  surgeon's  skill, 
not  a  groan  escaped  him,  not  a  cry.  Tears 
poured  from  my  eyes.  Such  power  lost  and 
wasted,  such  greatness  come  to  so  terrible 
an  end!  There  was  something  dreadful  to 
me  in  the  idea  that  even  the  policeman  could 


THE  BOMB  319 

speak  of  Lingg,  lying  there  dead,  as  a  "mons- 
ter." All  he  had  to  do  was  to  ask  the  death- 
watch,  Osborne,  and  he  might  have  got  a 
fairer  opinion  of  him,  for  Osborne  after  the 
catastrophe  was  not  afraid  to  speak  the  truth. 
This  is  what  he  said  of  Lingg:  "I  have  the 
highest  opinion  of  Louis  Lingg;  I  believe 
him  to  have  been  misunderstood;  as  honest 
in  his  opinions  as  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to 
be,  and  as  free  from  feelings  of  revenge  as  a 
new-born  babe.  I  only  wish  that  every 
young  man  in  America  could  be  as  strong 
and  good  as  Louis  Lingg,  barring  his  anar- 
chism." 

Even  his  jailers  were  won  by  him  to  pity 
and  to  reverence. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MY  long  task  is  nearly  done,  and  I  am  not 
strong  enough  to  linger  over  the  last 
saa  happenings.  Ten  or  twelve  days  after 
I  received  at  Cologne  the  telegraphic  news  of 
Lingg's  death,  I  got  the  newspaper  accounts 
of  the  whole  occurrence,  which  I  have  used 
in  the  last  chapter,  and  with  the  same  post  a 
long  letter  from  Ida,  containing  four  leaflets 
covered  with  Lingg's  clear  script.  lie  had 
written  them  and  given  them  to  Ida  to  be 
sent  to  me  on  her  last  visit  on  Saturday, 
the  fifth  of  November,  just  before  the  bombs 
were  found  in  his  cell.     Here  is  the  letter — 

"Dear  Will, 

"You  have  followed  my  lingering  illness, 
I  know,  and  will  be  glad  as  I  am  that  the 
doctors  are  going  to  allow  me  to  get  up  within 
a  week.  I  have  suffered  and  must  still  suf- 
fer; it  has  taught  me  that  no  one  should  in- 
flict suffering  who  is  not  ready  to  bear  it 
cheerfully;  I  am  ready.  Our  work's  nearly 
finished.  Will,  and  it  is  good  work,  not  bad, 
as  you  once  feared.  The  First  Factory  Act 
passed  in  the  State  of  New  York,  preventing 


THE  BOMB  321 

children  under  thirteen  being  worked  to  death, 
is  dated  1886.  The  only  thing  that  remains 
for  one  of  us  now  is  to  do  what  Jesus  did 
with  the  cross,  and  by  sheer  loving-kindness 
turn  the  hangman's  noose  into  a  symbol  of 
the  eternal  brotherhood  of  men.  My  heart 
burns  within  me;  we  won  the  Children's 
Charter  and  it  was  cheap  at  the  price;  good 
work.  Will;  never  doubt  it. 

"It  is  good,  too,  that  you  and  I  got  to 
know  and  love  each  other.  Be  kind  to  Ida; 
marry  Elsie;  get  on  with  your  great  book, 
and  be  happy  as  men  are  happy  who  can 
work  for  themselves  and  others. 

!!Your  loving  comrade  to  the  end, 

"Jack." 

I  don't  wish  to  put  too  high  these  hasty 
lines  scribbled  in  jail  almost  at  the  last  min- 
ute; but  it  is  impossible  to  read  them  without 
recognizing  the  noble  courage  and  generous 
thought  of  others  which  breathe  through  them: 
"out  of  the  strong  came  forth  sweetness." 

So  far  as  I  was  concerned  this  letter  lifted 
me  out  of  the  slough  of  despair.  Determined 
to  do  as  Lingg  asked  me,  I  got  work  on  the 
papers  in  Cologne  and  did  my  best  to  take  up 
again  the  burden  of  life. 

Ida's  letter  to  me  explained  everything, 
and  I  read  it  with  tears  dropping  from  my 


322  THE  BOMB 

eyes.  She  forced  herself  to  give  me  Lingg's 
last  thoughts: 

"'Tell  Will.'  he  said,  'that  it  seemed  to  me 
wrong  to  strike  subordinates  or  instruments 
more  than  once,  and  I  was  prevented  strik- 
ing principals  or  the  court  as  I  had  in- 
tended. 

"'Besides,  we  were  being  misunderstood: 
men  of  the  baser  sort  said  we  struck  out  of 
greed  or  hate:  it  was  necessary  to  prove  that 
if  we  held  the  lives  of  others  cheap,  we  held 
our  own  cheaper.  Men  do  not  kill  themselves 
for  greed  or  hate;  but  for  love,  and  for  an  ideal. 
My  deed  will  teach  the  wiser  among  our  op- 
ponents that  their  police  are  of  no  use  against 
us;  authority  must  be  one  with  right  and  love 
to  win  a  man's  reverence.' 

"He  was  mad,  Will,"  Ida  wrote  on,  "as 
those  are  mad  who  are  too  good  to  live.  I 
begged  him  for  my  sake  not  to  touch  the 
thing;  but  he  got  me  to  bring  it  in  on  my 
fingers  and  in  my  hair,  bit  by  bit;  he  wanted 
enough  for  the  others  as  well  as  himself — 
'the  key,'  he  called  it,  'of  our  mortal 
prison.' " 

The  rest  of  her  letter  was  very  simple  and 
very  touching;  it  was  evidently  written  after 
the  final  scene  and  the  quiet  burial.  Mrs. 
Engel  had  been  very  kind,  she  said,  and  had 
insisted  that  Ida  should  go  to  live  with  her. 


THE  BOMB  323 

They  were  together  now  in  the  shop,  Ida 
helping  to  take  care  of  the  three  children. 
The  youngest  is  just  like  Engel  himself,  Ida 
added,  so  chubby  and  kind  and  strong;  and 
then  she  went  back  to  Lingg: 

"He  told  me  not  to  think  of  the  past,  and  I 
am  trying  to  do  as  he  wished;  but  it  is  very 
hard;  often  I  forget,  and  Johnny  pulls  my  dress 
and  says,  'Don't  twy.  Auntie  Ida!  don't  twy.' 

"Elsie  comes  to  see  me  every  day;  she  is 
loyal  and  true.  Write  to  her;  she  is  prettier 
than  ever,  and  in  her  mourning  looks  angelic. 
Write  often.  Will;  we  must  draw  closer  now 
—ah,  God!  .  .  ." 

I  wrote  by  return  to  Ida  telling  her  of  my 
loving  sympathy,  and  begging  her  to  let  me 
know  if  I  could  help  her  in  any  way,  and  in- 
closed a  letter  to  Elsie,  asking  her  if  she  were 
willing  to  marry  me.  She  replied  that  she 
was  willing  to  come  to  Germany  or  France, 
and  marry  me  at  once;  might  she  bring  her 
mother.^  The  letter  was  all  sweetness.  The 
dear  baby  phrases  in  it  were  as  balm  to  my 
heart.  "I  wish  I  were  with  you,  dear,  to 
nurse  you;  you'd  soon  get  well.  You  have 
taught  me  love;  I  am  a  better  woman  for 
having  known  you,  and  so  proud  of  my  boy. 
I  am  longing  to  start,  and  yet  the  thought  of 
meeting  you  makes  me  very  shy.  .  ."  The 
sweetheart! 


324  THE  BOMB 

I  wrote  back  that  I  hoped  for  nothing 
better  on  earth  than  her  companionship,  and 
that  I  would  begin  at  once  to  get  a  house 
ready  and  would  send  for  her  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. 

But  it  was  not  to  be.  One  evening  I  had 
wandered  about  trying  to  coax  myself  to  hope, 
or  at  least  to  work;  but  in  vain.  All  my 
thoughts  turned  to  melancholy  brooding  and 
sadness.  It  seems  to  me  now,  looking  back, 
that  something  in  me  broke  when  Elsie  left 
my  room  on  that  fatal  afternoon  in  May.  I 
was  not  strong  enough  for  such  tremendous, 
conflicting  emotions;  something  else  snapped 
when  I  threw  the  bomb  and  realized  what  I 
had  done,  and  the  last  strand  that  bound  me 
to  life  gave  way  when  Lingg  died.  Nature 
treats  us  as  we  treat  stubborn  children.  We 
cling  to  the  bough  of  life  as  long  as  we  can, 
and  Nature  comes  and  strikes  our  fingers 
one  after  the  other,  till,  unable  to  endure  the 
punishment  any  longer,  we  loosen  our  hold 
and  fall  into  the  void. 

My  punishment  had  broken  my  will  to 
live;  it  had  probably  undermined  my  strength 
also,  for  a  simple  wetting  brought  me  down. 
Next  morning  I  could  scarcely  breathe  with 
bronchitis,  and  was  ill.  I  wrote  to  Elsie  and 
told  her  that  I  had  caught  a  bad  cold;  begged 
her  to  wait  for  me,  I  should  soon  get  better; 


THE  BOMB  325 

but  I  knew  even  then  that  I  was  more  likely 
to  get  worse. 

I  continued  to  work  at  my  book  feverishly, 
determined  to  finish  my  task;  but  at  the  end 
of  ten  days  in  bed,  the  kindly  people  of  the 
house  called  in  a  doctor,  who  looked  very 
grave  and  advised  me  to  go  to  Davos  Platz, 
and  when  pressed  told  me  that  I  was  in  a 
consumption,  and  that  both  lungs  were  af- 
fected. The  truth  was,  I  suppose,  that  my 
frame  was  too  weak  to  resist  any  attack,  and 
I  looked  forward  to  the  end  with  a  sigh  of 
content;  one  gets  so  weary  of  this  hard,  all- 
hating  world!  I  redoubled  my  efforts  to 
finish  the  book.  As  soon  as  I  had  had  two 
fair  copies  made  of  it,  and  had  sent  one  off  to 
Ida  and  one  to  Elsie,  I  felt  considerably 
better;  only  this  short,  last  chapter  remained 
to  be  done.  Somehow  or  other  I  thought 
that  if  I  could  get  back  to  the  air  of  my  native 
Alps  again  I  should  get  quite  well,  so  I  came 
back  to  Munich  and  then  here  to  Reichholz, 
close  to  the  homeland,  for  a  visit;  it  will  be  a 
long  one.  Before  I  began  to  write  this  chap- 
ter yesterday  I  wrote  long  letters  to  Ida  and 
Elsie,  taking  an  eternal  farewell.  I  think,  I 
hope,  I  shall  get  a  reply  from  Elsie;  and  if  I 
do,  I  will  add  it  to  this  last  chapter,  and  the 
whole  book  shall  be  sent  off  to  her  after  my 
death  to  do  with  as  she  and  Ida  may  direct. 


m  THE  BOMB 

And  now,  what  is  the  end  of  the  whole 
matter?  I  went  out  into  the  world  and 
fought  and  laboured  in  it,  and  have  come 
back  to  my  birthplace.  A  journeying  and 
fighting — ^  sweet  kiss  or  two  and  the  clasp 
of  a  friend's  hand — that's  what  life  has  meant 
for  me.  One  starts  out  with  a  certain  capital 
of  energy,  and  whether  one  spreads  it  over 
threescore  years,  or  exhausts  it  in  three,  mat- 
ters nothing.  The  question  is  what  one  has 
done  and  achieved,  and  not  whether  one 
suffered  or  enjoyed,  much  less  how  long  it 
took  one  to  do  the  work. 

There  is  something  in  our  case,  I  feel  sure, 
to  the  credit  side.  As  Lingg  said,  the  bomb 
thrown  in  the  Ha}Tiiarket  put  an  end  to  the 
bludgeoning  and  pistolling  of  unarmed  men 
and  women  by  the  police;  it  helped,  too,  to 
win  the  Children's  Charter,  and  to  establish 
"Labour  Day"  as  a  popular  festival.  The 
effect  of  Lingg's  desperate  self-murder  was 
prodigious.  Chicago  took  his  teaching  to 
heart;  such  a  death  has  its  own  dignity  and 
its  own  virtue.  In  some  dim  way  the  people 
in  Chicago  came  to  recognize  that  Lingg  and 
Parsons  were  extraordinary  men,  and  all  con- 
fessed in  their  hearts  that  there  must  be  some- 
thing very  wrong  in  a  social  state  which  had 
driven  such  men  to  despair. 

One  fact  exemplifies  the  change  of  feeling. 


THE  BOMB  327 

Near  the  spot  where  the  policemen  fell  in 
the  Haymarket,  a  monument  was  erected  in 
memory  of  them  with  a  statue  of  a  policeman 
on  top.  But  after  a  very  short  time  it  was 
removed  on  some  convenient  pretext  to  be 
erected  again,  miles  from  the  scene  of  the  un- 
happy event,  in  a  wooded  park,  where  no 
one  sees  it  or  knows  what  it  commemorates. 
Somehow  or  other  it  was  generally  understood 
that  the  police  were  not  the  heroes  of  the 
occasion. 

In  the  same  way,  I  remember,  after  Marat 
was  killed  in  the  French  Revolution,  he  was 
given  a  gorgeous  state  funeral;  his  body  was 
interred  with  all  ceremony  in  the  Pantheon; 
men  and  women  went  mad  over  him,  wore 
Marat  hats  and  Marat  ties  and  Marat  coats 
to  do  him  honour;  but  in  a  year  it  was  found 
that  Charlotte  Corday  was  justified,  that  she 
was  a  great  woman  and  not  an  assassin;  and 
so  before  the  months  had  run  full  circle, 
Marat's  body  was  taken  out  of  the  Pantheon, 
his  coffin  broken  open,  and  his  dust  scattered 
to  the  winds.     Justice  has  its  revenges. 

The  outcome  and  the  result  in  our  case  is 
perhaps  uncertain.  Was  the  work  well  done  ? 
Is  revolt  best,  or  submission.^  I'm  afraid 
the  more  I  seem  to  have  paid  in  pain  and 
misery  for  what  I  did,  the  more  certain  I 
feel  that  we  were  right. 


328  THE  BOMB 

One  thing  is  past  doubt.  Louis  Lingg 
was  a  great  man,  and  a  born  leader  of  men, 
who  with  happier  chances  might  have  been  a 
great  reformer,  or  a  great  statesman.  When 
they  talk  of  him  as  a  murderer,  it  fills  me  with 
pity  for  them,  for  in  Lingg,  too,  was  the  blood 
of  the  martyrs:  he  had  the  martyr's  pity  for 
men,  the  martyr's  sympathy  with  suffering 
and  destitution,  the  martyr's  burning  con- 
tempt for  greed  and  meanness,  the  martyr's 
hope  in  the  future,  the  martyr's  belief  in  the 
ultimate  perfectibility  of  men. 

What  have  I  to  say  more  ?  Nothing.  He 
that  has  ears  will  hear,  and  the  others  do  not 
matter.  Nearing  the  end  I  begin  to  see  that 
the  opinion  of  one's  fellows  is  not  worth  much, 
and  another  saying  of  Lingg's  comes  to  help 
me  here.  *'The  law  of  gravitation,"  he  said, 
"is  the  law  of  the  ought;  it  would  be  easy  to 
put  oneself  in  perfect  relation  to  the  centre  of 
gravity  of  this  world;  would  be  easy  and 
safe  and  pleasant.  But,  strange  to  say,  the 
centre  of  gravity,  even  of  our  globe  itself,  is 
always  changing,  moving  towards  some  un- 
seen goal.  Stars  beyond  our  ken  draw  us 
and  change  our  destinies.  And  so  Mr.  World- 
ly Wise  comes  to  grief.  Our  only  chance  of 
being  right  is  to  trust  the  heart,  and  act  on 
what  we  feel." 
One  word  about  myself.     Here  at  the  end 


THE  BOMB  329 

I  am  fairly  content.  I  have  not  had  much 
happiness  in  life,  except  with  Elsie;  but 
through  knowing  Elsie  and  Lingg,  I  came  to 
a  fuller,  richer  life  than  I  should  ever  have 
reached  by  myself,  and  whoever  has  climbed 
the  heights  is  not  likely  to  complain  of  the 
cost.  I  am  only  sorry  for  Elsie  and  Ida;  I 
wish,  I  wish — but  after  all,  even  the  roughest 
men  do  not  trample  on  flowers. 

I  cannot  believe  that  in  this  world  any  un- 
selfish deed  is  lost,  that  any  aspiration  or  even 
hope  dies  away  without  effect.  In  my  own 
short  life  I  have  seen  the  seed  sown  and  the 
fruit  gathered,  and  that  is  enough  for  me. 
We  shall  no  doubt  be  despised  and  reviled 
by  men,  at  least  for  a  time,  because  we  shall 
be  judged  by  the  rich  and  the  powerful,  and 
not  by  the  destitute  and  the  dispossessed  for 
whom  we  gave  our  lives. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

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